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 the crumbs
Cut off all the crust from the stale brown bread.
Rub the bread crumbs through a wire sieve into a bowl.
Combine 5 oz of bread crumbs and 3 oz of castor sugar in a basin.
Grate the lemon rind over the bread crumbs.
Add ½ teaspoon of essence of vanilla to the mixture.
Make the custard base
Boil ½ cup of milk in a saucepan.
Pour the boiling milk over the bread crumb mixture.
Whip ½ cup of cream to stiff peaks and add it to the mixture.
Stir in the yolks of 4 eggs one at a time.
Gently fold in the whipped egg whites.
Steam and serve
Butter a 1‑pint mold well.
Pour the mixture into the mold and cover it with kitchen paper.
Boil a saucepan of warm water.
Place the mold in the boiling water and steam for about 1 hour.
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.
-
Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
-
Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
-
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 brown bread
- Provides the body of the pudding, soaking up the milk and cream to form a soft crumb.
- Eggs
- Set during steaming to give the pudding its structure, while the whites add lightness.
- Milk
- Hydrates the bread crumbs so they soften and blend into a moist base.
- Cream
- Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, more tender texture.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderise the crumb.
The step that matters
Gently fold in the whipped egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives lightness. Overmixing deflates the foam, so the pudding turns dense rather than light.
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.
You might also like
Lemon Cake228 recipes
Bread Pudding153 recipes
Lemon Ice147 recipes
Vanilla Ice Cream108 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.