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Dessert

A Rich Bread and Butter Pudding

A layered bread pudding made with French roll, eggs, sugar, optional soaked ratafias, brandy, currants, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

A Rich Bread and Butter 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.

Assemble

  1. In a deep dish, layer slices of buttered French roll alternately with the mixture of egg yolks, sugar, ratafias, brandy, and currants.

  2. Fill the dish with these layers and pour a little milk over the top.

  3. Finish with a final layer of buttered bread.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites to a froth and spread over the top if a decorative finish is desired.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Brandy + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

French roll
Forms the bulk of the pudding and soaks up the custard as it sets.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard so it sets, while whites can be beaten into a light topping.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture to the egg mixture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the fruit and egg mixture.
Currants
Add sweet, chewy bursts of fruit throughout the layers.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the pudding needs to bake until just firm. Removing it too early leaves a runny custard, while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, brandy, milk, 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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