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Dessert

Baked Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and lemon, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Baked 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 ↓

Baked Pudding

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.

Prepare the custard base

  1. Heat milk to boiling and pour it over bread crumbs.

  2. Let stand 30 minutes.

  3. Beat eggs until light.

  4. Mix eggs with milk and bread mixture.

  5. Add sugar, butter, lemon extract, and grated lemon peel.

Fill and bake

  1. Butter small cups.

  2. Add currants or raisins to batter.

  3. Pour batter into cups until a little more than half full.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and give the pudding its structure as they cook.
Milk
Soaks the bread crumbs and provides the liquid that gives the pudding its moist, tender texture.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the body of the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning on the surface.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the crumb and carrying flavor.

The step that matters

Fill cups only a little more than half full. Eggs expand and the batter rises as it bakes, so overfilling can spill over and bake unevenly. Leaving room lets the pudding rise and set evenly.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar, butter, lemon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, butter, lemon. 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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Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

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