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 bread crumbs
Remove the crust from the stale brown bread.
Crumb the bread into a bowl.
Sift the bread crumbs through a wire sieve into a plate.
Make the custard base
In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.
Combine 5 oz of bread crumbs with 3 oz of caster sugar in a basin.
Grate the lemon rind over the bread crumbs.
Add ½ teaspoon of essence of vanilla to the mixture.
Pour the boiling milk over the bread crumbs.
Enrich and mould
In a separate basin, whip the cream until stiff.
Stir the whipped cream into the bread mixture.
Add the yolks of 4 eggs one at a time.
Whip the whites of 2 eggs until stiff.
Gently fold the stiff whites into the mixture.
Butter a 1-pint mold thoroughly.
Pour the mixture into the mold.
Butter a piece of kitchen paper.
Place the paper over the top.
Steam
Boil a saucepan of warm water.
Place the mold in the boiling water.
Steam.
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.
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Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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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
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich the custard and whites, whipped and folded in, lighten the pudding's texture.
- Brown bread
- Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up the milk to give it a soft, set crumb.
- Milk
- Softens the bread crumbs and carries the flavour through the mixture.
- Cream
- Whipped into the mixture, adds richness and a tender, moist texture.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps balance the bread and egg flavours.
The step that matters
Folding in the stiff egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks; overmixing deflates them, so the pudding loses lightness. Fold gently and keep the batter's airiness.
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.
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