Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Jam and Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Spread a little jam on the slices of bread.
Lay the jammed bread on a dish.
Pour hot milk over the bread until covered.
Let it soak for a while.
Serve
Serve hot or cold.
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.
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.
-
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread
- Soaks up the hot milk and forms the soft, custard-like body of the pudding.
- Jam
- Adds sweetness and fruity flavour that soaks through the bread as it sits.
- Hot milk
- Moistens the bread and softens its structure so it becomes tender rather than dry.
The step that matters
Let it soak for a while. Bread needs time to absorb the milk fully. If it is served too soon, dry patches remain and the pudding lacks a uniformly soft texture.
“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.
You might also like
Bread Pudding153 recipes
Soft Ginger Bread85 recipes
Orange Potato Bread80 recipes
Brown Bread Pudding47 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.