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Dessert

Brown Bread Pudding

A pudding made from brown bread crumbs, wholemeal flour, raisins, dates, golden syrup, dripping, milk or water, mixed spice, salt, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Brown Bread Pudding

Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Brown Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the dry ingredients, except for the baking powder.

  2. Melt the golden syrup and dripping together, then let cool before adding to the dry mixture.

  3. Beat the mixture well before adding the baking powder.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a basin and boil for 2.5 hours.

  2. For a richer pudding, add an egg.

  3. For a vegetarian option, replace dripping with 2 ounces of oil and 1 ounce of grated nuts.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + datestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Raisin + datestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Brown bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and absorb the liquid to give it body.
Wholemeal flour
Adds structure and bulk, helping the pudding hold together as it cooks.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the pudding brown and stay soft.
Dripping
Adds fat, giving a rich texture and tenderness to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, lifting the mixture so it is lighter.

The step that matters

Adding the baking powder. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it meets moisture and heat, so it should be added after the mixture is well beaten and just before steaming. Adding it too early, or letting the batter stand, can waste its rising power and leave the pudding dense.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, raisin, syrup, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, raisin, syrup, milk. 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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