Skip to main content
Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A baked pudding made from stale bread, butter, eggs, milk, sugar, salt, and optional raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Bread and Butter Pudding

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Bread and Butter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the bread

  1. Remove the end crusts from the bread and cut the loaf into ½ inch slices.

  2. Spread each slice generously with butter and arrange them in a buttered pudding dish, buttered side down.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs slightly, then add sugar, salt, and milk; strain the mixture and pour it over the bread.

  2. Let the dish stand for 30 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for one hour, covering the first half-hour of baking.

  2. The top of the pudding should be well browned before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Stale bread
Soaks up the custard and sets into a soft, tender structure.
Eggs
Set the custard as it bakes, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that moistens the bread and sets when baked.
Butter
Enriches the bread and helps the top brown richly in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Covering the first half-hour of baking. Covering traps steam so the custard cooks gently and sets without curdling or drying out. Uncovering afterward lets the top brown.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes