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Dessert

Rusk Pudding

A pudding made with stale bread, eggs, milk, sugar, lemon, jam, and cornflour, baked until firm.

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

Rusk Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the base

  1. Cut the stale bread into small squares and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until golden.

  2. In a pie dish, beat the eggs with the sugar and grated lemon rind.

  3. Pour in 1 pint of milk and mix well.

  4. Add the baked bread squares and place in a 300°F (150°C) oven until firm.

Make the topping and bake

  1. Spread a layer of jam on top.

  2. In a saucepan, heat ½ pint of milk until nearly boiling.

  3. Mix the cornflour with a little lemon peel and sugar, then stir into the hot milk.

  4. Pour the mixture over the pudding and return to the oven for a few minutes.

  5. Allow to cool before serving.

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. 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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Bind the custard and set the pudding as they cook.
Bread
Provides the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that sets around the bread.
Cornflour
Thickens the hot milk so the topping becomes smooth and glossy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the lemon and jam.

The step that matters

Pouring the cornflour mixture into the hot milk. Cornflour must be stirred smoothly into hot liquid, ideally first mixed with a little cold liquid, to avoid lumps. Starch thickens only as it heats, so it needs to be stirred while the mixture warms.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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