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Dessert

Pudding, Bread and Butter

A custard-soaked bread pudding with currants, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pudding, Bread and Butter

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

  1. Butter a pie dish and layer currants and slices of bread and butter, buttered side down.

  2. Sprinkle a few currants between the layers.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs with sugar, then pour in the boiling milk, lemon rind, and nutmeg; stir well.

  2. Pour the custard over the bread and butter layers, ensuring they are soaked.

  3. Let it soak for 30 minutes.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the custard and help set the pudding as it bakes.
Slices of bread
Form the structure and soak up the custard to become tender.
Boiling milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the bread and forms the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the custard.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Pour the custard and let it soak. The bread must be fully saturated before baking so it becomes moist and custardy rather than dry in patches. Eggs in the custard set during baking, so uneven soaking leaves soggy or dry areas.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, egg, sugar, milk, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, egg, sugar, milk, lemon, nutmeg. 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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