Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the bread
Cut the bread into very thin slices.
Soak the bread in 1 quart of milk over a chafing dish until absorbed.
Add butter, stir, and let it cool.
Alternatively, boil the milk and pour it over the bread, covering it tightly.
Mix and cook
Beat the egg yolks and whites with rose water, nutmeg, salt, and sugar.
Mix everything well and place it in a cloth, tying it loosely to allow swelling.
Boil for 1 hour.
Serve
Serve with melted butter poured over it.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rose + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Yolks and whites bind the soaked bread and set into a firm, custard-like pudding when cooked.
- Milk
- Softens the bread and forms the liquid base that cooks into a moist custard.
- Bread (in the method)
- Provides the body of the pudding, absorbing the milk and egg mixture as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly at the surface.
The step that matters
Tying the cloth loosely. The pudding swells as it cooks, so a loose tie lets it expand; a tight cloth can restrict rising and cause the pudding to split or cook unevenly.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, rose, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Allspicefits less well
- Gingerfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, rose, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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