Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓
Brown Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut off all the crust from the stale brown loaf.
Rub the bread crumbs through a wire sieve into a bowl.
Make the custard base
In a bowl, combine 5 oz of bread crumbs with 3 oz of castor sugar.
Grate the rind of the lemon over the bread crumbs.
Add ½ teaspoon of essence of vanilla to the mixture.
In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.
When the milk boils, pour it over the bread crumbs.
Enrich and fold
In another bowl, whip the cream to stiff peaks.
Stir the whipped cream into the bread mixture.
Add the yolks of 4 eggs one at a time.
Whip the whites of 2 eggs to stiff peaks.
Gently fold the whipped whites into the mixture.
Butter a 2-pint mold well.
Steam and serve
Pour the mixture into the mold.
Cover with buttered kitchen paper.
Place the mold in a pot of boiling water to steam.
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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Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Vanilla and sugar 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
- Absorbs the milk and cream, giving the pudding its body and soft crumb.
- Eggs
- Set the custard as they cook, binding the pudding and adding richness.
- Milk
- Hydrates the bread crumbs and provides moisture for a tender texture.
- Cream
- Adds fat for a richer, smoother mouthfeel.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps soften the bread.
- Lemon
- Its rind adds bright citrus aroma that lifts the richness.
The step that matters
Gently fold the whipped whites into the mixture. Whipped egg whites trap air that gives lightness. Stirring vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a denser pudding.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, vanilla, sugar, milk, cream, egg):
- Figfits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, vanilla, sugar, milk, cream, egg. 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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