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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A baked pudding made with buttered bread, milk, egg, raisins, candied peel, and spices.

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

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 ↓

Bread and Butter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter a pie dish.

Assemble and soak

  1. Layer the bread and butter with the fruit and spice between the slices.

  2. Beat the egg with the milk and pour over the layered bread.

  3. Let it soak for a while.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until set and browned, about 40 minutes.

  2. Cover initially to prevent dryness.

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

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks the bread and sets during baking.
Egg
Binds the custard so it sets into a soft, sliceable texture when baked.
Bread and butter
Absorbs the custard and, with butter, browns on top as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Sultana raisins or currants
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of moisture through the pudding.

The step that matters

Cover initially to prevent dryness. Egg custard proteins set with heat, and prolonged direct heat can dry the top and toughen the custard. Covering early keeps moisture in while the custard sets, then uncovering lets the surface brown.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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