Skip to main content
Dessert

Jam and Bread Pudding

A simple bread pudding made with stale bread, milk, jam, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Jam and Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the bread pieces and milk. Let it soak for 10 minutes.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the jam, eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, and salt. Mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  3. Bake for 30-40 minutes until set and golden on top.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + vanillatop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together497 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Soaks up the milk and egg custard, giving the pudding its body and structure.
Milk
Hydrates the bread and forms the custard base that sets as the pudding bakes.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, binding the pudding into a sliceable texture.
Jam
Adds sweetness, fruit flavour and moisture throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. Underbaking leaves the egg custard runny in the centre, while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery. Bake until the top is golden and the centre has just firmed.

“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 PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes