Skip to main content
Dessert

Little Brown Puddings

A baked pudding made with brown bread crumbs, milk, cream, eggs, almonds, ratafias, spices, butter, sugar, and treacle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Little Brown Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk, sugar, butter, and bread crumbs, then bring to a boil.

  2. Beat the mixture well and let it cool.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the eggs and treacle, mixing thoroughly.

  2. Half-fill buttered cup or dariole moulds with the mixture.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350 °F (175 °C) for about 20 minutes.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown bread crumbs
Provide the body of the pudding and soak up the liquid to form a soft crumb.
Eggs
Set as they bake, giving the pudding its firm, custard-like structure.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that softens the crumbs and keeps the texture moist.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly in the oven.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep, caramel-like flavour.

The step that matters

Half-fill the moulds. The mixture expands and sets as it bakes. Filling only halfway leaves room for rising, so the pudding cooks evenly and does not overflow.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, cream, 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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBread Crumb CakesBread Crumb Cakes30 recipes