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Dessert

Viennoise Pudding

A bread pudding made with stale bread, raisins, candied peel, sugar, milk, and optional sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Viennoise 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 ↓

Viennoise Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread pieces in sherry and milk (or milk and cream) for a while.

  2. Beat the soaked bread with a fork until well mixed.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the sultana raisins, moist sugar, and chopped candied peel to the mixture, then mix well and pour into a baking dish.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until set and golden.

  3. Serve warm.

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Its dry, porous crumb soaks up the liquid and gives the pudding its body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and, as it sets, the custard-like texture.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. Bread pudding needs enough heat for the egg-free milk mixture to firm and hold its shape without drying out. Pulling it too early leaves it wet in the centre, while overbaking dries the bread and toughens the surface.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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