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Dessert

Superior Bread Pudding

A baked custard pudding of bread crumbs, milk, eggs and sugar, topped with jam and meringue and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Superior Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Rub the butter into 1 cup of sugar.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until very light.

  3. Stir the beaten yolks into the butter and sugar mixture.

  4. Soak the bread crumbs in milk.

  5. Add the soaked bread crumbs and the flavoring to the mixture.

  6. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered large pudding dish, filling it two-thirds full.

  7. Bake until the custard is set.

Top and finish

  1. Spread jam or fruit conserve on top.

  2. Cover with a meringue made from whipped egg whites and ½ cup of sugar.

  3. Bake until the meringue begins to color.

  4. Serve cold with cream.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites form the meringue topping.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they absorb liquid and give the pudding its body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the custard sets from, adding moisture and richness.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard and the meringue, and helps the meringue hold its structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the sugar and giving a tender custard.
Jam
Adds a fruity sweet layer between the custard and the meringue.

The step that matters

Bake until the custard is set. Egg proteins coagulate as the custard heats, so underbaking leaves it runny and overbaking makes it weep and turn rubbery. Watch for a set center that still jiggles slightly.

“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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