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Dessert

Bread Pudding

Bread pudding made with soaked bread, milk, eggs, molasses, sugar, spices, raisins, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Tear the bread into pieces and soak it in the milk.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the molasses, sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, cloves, allspice, and raisins.

  2. Combine the soaked bread with the egg mixture and stir well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake for three to four hours 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.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Provides a porous structure that soaks up the custard and holds the pudding's shape.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that moistens the bread and sets with the eggs.
Eggs
Coagulate when heated, binding the pudding into a firm, sliceable custard.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color with deep flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake low and slow until set. Egg proteins set gently at low heat. If the oven runs too hot or the pudding bakes too long, the eggs tighten, curdle and turn spongy and watery.

“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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