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Dessert

Oxford Pudding

A sweet bread pudding made with milk‑soaked breadcrumbs, eggs, butter, sugar, currants or raisins, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Oxford Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk or pour hot milk over them.

  2. Heat the butter in a baking dish.

Mix and bake

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined.

  2. Stir the egg mixture and the fruit into the soaked crumbs.

  3. Dissolve the baking powder in a little milk or water and add it to the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into the buttered dish and bake at 400°F (200°C).

Serve

  1. Serve hot with 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.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a custard-like texture as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk to form the soft, moist body of the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the crumbs and gives the pudding its moisture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to lighten the pudding.
Currants or raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and fruity flavor throughout the pudding.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, egg, butter, 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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