Skip to main content
Dessert

Bread Pudding

A steamed pudding made from sliced bread, milk, eggs, sugar, and marmalade.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Bread Pudding

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 ↓

Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread and milk

  1. Remove the crust from the bread.

  2. Break the soft part of the bread into a bowl.

  3. Boil the milk.

  4. Pour the boiled milk over the bread.

  5. Cover the bowl with a plate and let it sit for 10 minutes.

  6. Use a fork to whisk the mixture until it forms a pulp.

Make the pudding mixture

  1. Beat the eggs.

  2. Stir the beaten eggs into the mixture.

  3. Add the marmalade and mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a basin or plain mold.

  2. Spread 1 tablespoon of marmalade over the bottom of the mold.

  3. Pour the pudding mixture into the mold.

  4. Cover the mold with buttered paper.

  5. Steam for 1 hour.

  6. Turn the pudding out onto a plate.

  7. Let the marmalade pour around it as sauce.

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.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Bread
Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up the milk and egg to hold its shape.
Milk
Softens the bread and provides the liquid that sets into a tender custard.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, giving the pudding its firm, custardy structure.
Marmalade
Adds sweetness and a bitter-citrus flavour, and forms a glossy sauce when poured out.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly and taste rounded.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding gently. Steam heats the custard gently so the eggs set evenly. Too much heat or boiling can curdle the eggs and leave the texture rough or watery.

“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.

More bread pudding recipes

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

You might also like

Soft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBread Crumb CakesBread Crumb Cakes30 recipesGingerbreadGingerbread25 recipes