Name: Bread-and-butter Pudding
Ingredients: ¼ pound butter; 8 slices brown or white bread; ½ pound currants; 2 ounces citron, cut into thin strips; 2 ounces moist sugar; 1 teaspoon allspice; 1 packet custard powder (about 4 ounces)

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bread-and-butter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cut the bread into thin slices and spread a thin layer of butter on each slice.
Soak the currants in cold water until plump.

Assemble and bake

Layer the slices of bread in a well-buttered pie dish, adding currants and strips of citron between layers.
Sprinkle each layer with allspice and sugar.
Prepare 1 pint of custard using the custard powder according to package instructions.
Pour the custard slowly over the layered bread and bake for 30 minutes.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,359 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,856 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,398 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread: Forms the structure that soaks up custard and sets into a soft, sliceable body.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the bread brown and taste savoury-sweet in the oven.
Custard powder: Thickens the liquid into a custard that sets around the bread as it bakes.
Currants: Add chewy pockets of sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the pudding.
Moist sugar: Sweetens the layers and adds a mild caramel note to the custard and bread.

The step that matters

Pour the custard slowly over the layered bread. Pouring slowly lets the bread absorb the custard evenly instead of floating or pooling, so the pudding sets uniformly without dry or soggy patches.

Swap the allspice

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Allspicethe original
Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, currant, 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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Bread-and-butter Pudding