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Dessert

Modern Cookery

A custard-soaked bread pudding flavored with almonds, lemon rind, currants, and candied peel, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Flavour the milk

  1. Simmer the milk with the lemon rind and bruised almonds (or cinnamon) for 10 to 20 minutes.

Assemble

  1. In a thickly buttered dish, layer the bread and butter with currants and candied peel.

  2. Whisk together the eggs, sugar, and cream (if using) in a bowl.

  3. Gradually pour the egg mixture over the layered bread, allowing it to absorb the liquid before adding more.

  4. Let the mixture soak for 2 hours.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Bake for 30 minutes until set.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Soaks up the custard so the pudding holds its shape and turns tender.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, binding the bread into a sliceable pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, providing moisture for the bread.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Gradually pour the egg mixture over the bread. Pouring slowly lets the bread absorb the custard evenly. Pouring too fast floods the dish, leaving dry patches and pooled liquid that may not set properly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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