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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A baked dessert made with bread, butter, milk, eggs, sugar, and candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Bread and Butter 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 ↓

Bread and Butter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter a pie dish.

  2. Place 3 slices of thin bread and butter at the bottom.

  3. Sprinkle the candied peel, cut into very small pieces, over the bread.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk with the sugar until it reaches boiling point.

  2. Pour the hot milk onto the beaten eggs and whisk well for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture over the bread and butter.

  4. Let it stand for 30 minutes.

Bake

  1. Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes or 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.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard into a soft, sliceable texture as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying the eggs and sugar.
Bread
Soaks up the custard, giving the pudding its body and structure.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the bread and helps it brown lightly.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its flavour.
Candied peel
Adds bursts of citrus-sweet flavour and aroma throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake in a cool oven until just set. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with heat. Baking too hot or too long makes the custard curdle or turn rubbery and watery. Remove it once the centre just wobbles.

“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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