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 Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the pudding
Beat the egg yolks until light, then add the milk and mix well.
Stir in the bread crumbs, baking powder, melted butter, and nutmeg.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes until set but not watery.
Remove from the oven and spread with currant jelly.
Top and brown
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the sugar and spread over the pudding.
Return to the oven to brown lightly.
Serve with cream or your choice of sauce.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,997 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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 beaten whites form a light meringue topping.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the milk and eggs to form the body of the pudding.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that the crumbs soak up and the eggs set into a custard.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, more tender crumb.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that lightens the pudding so it rises a little while baking.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the meringue topping and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
The step that matters
Baking the custard until just set. Egg proteins set as they heat, so pulling the pudding out once it is set but not watery prevents a weeping, curdled texture. Overbaking makes it dry and rubbery.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, butter, nutmeg, milk, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, butter, nutmeg, milk, 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.
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