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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with bread crumbs, milk, egg, raisins, lemon rind, sugar, brandy, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

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 ↓

Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the rind of ½ lemon very thinly and boil it in the milk to flavor it.

  2. Strain the milk onto the bread crumbs in a bowl.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and 2 ounces of stoned and chopped raisins.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the egg well and mix it with the other ingredients, adding a little grated nutmeg.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 1 hour.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour it into a buttered pie dish, sprinkle a little sugar on top, and bake gently at 300°F (150°C) for 1.5 hours.

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

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

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Brandy + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding by soaking up the milk and setting around the egg.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm as it bakes.
Milk
Soaks into the crumbs and provides moisture for a tender custard-like texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps brown the top surface during baking.
Raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake gently at low heat. A low, gentle oven lets the egg custard set evenly and keeps it smooth. High heat can curdle the egg and make the pudding rubbery or watery.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More bread pudding recipes

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

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