Name: Boiled Bread Pudding
Ingredients: 1 quart bread crumbs; 1 cup hot milk; 1 cup molasses; 1 cup chopped fruit or raisins; 1 teaspoon spices; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup sifted flour

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

Soak the bread crumbs in hot milk until soft.
Add molasses, chopped fruit or raisins, spices, butter, salt, baking soda, and flour.
Mix well and pour into a suitable pot.

Cook and serve

Boil or steam for three hours.
Serve with sweet sauce.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs: Soaked in hot milk, they absorb liquid and form the soft body of the pudding.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Flour: Its starch sets as it cooks, helping hold the pudding together.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas that lightens the texture.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Fruit or raisins: Adds chewy texture, moisture, and natural sweetness.

The step that matters

Steaming for the full three hours. The batter is wet and dense, so it needs sustained gentle heat to set fully through the center. Cutting the time short can leave it gummy and underbaked inside.

“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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Boiled Bread Pudding