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Marmalade & Whisky Bread & Butter Pudding

The ultimate grown-up comfort food, use leftover fruit bread or even croissants instead of the bread if you prefer

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,145 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6 - 8
Prep15 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Grease a shallow ovenproof dish with a little of the soft butter.

  2. Spread the remaining soft butter thinly over one side of each bread slice, then spread the smaller portion of marmalade over the butter.

  3. Arrange the bread in the dish in overlapping layers, buttered sides facing up.

  4. Warm the milk, cream, vanilla seeds and half the golden caster sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until steaming, without letting it boil. Remove from the heat and whisk in the larger portion of marmalade and the whisky.

  5. Whisk the eggs with the remaining sugar in a bowl. Slowly pour in the warm cream mixture, whisking constantly.

  6. Pour the custard evenly over the bread, pressing gently so the bread soaks it up. Leave to stand for 15 minutes.

  7. Place the dish in a roasting tin and pour boiling water into the tin until it reaches halfway up the sides of the dish. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until just set and the centre reaches 160°F (71°C).

  8. Rest for 10 minutes, dust generously with icing sugar and serve warm.

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19,175 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Vanilla + sugartop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the orange

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

  1. Strawberrybetter flavor fit
  2. Figbetter flavor fit
  3. Raspberrybetter flavor fit
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, milk, cream, egg, vanilla, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).