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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A baked dessert made from soaked bread, eggs, milk, sugar, and jam, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. 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 the base

  1. Soak the bread in cold water until soft, then squeeze it dry.

  2. In a bowl, mix the bread with sugar, egg yolks, and milk.

Assemble

  1. Half-fill a pie dish with this mixture.

  2. Add a layer of jam.

  3. Fill the dish with the remaining mixture.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake until set at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Whisk the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  3. Spread the whipped egg whites on top of the pudding.

  4. Return to the oven to brown the top.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Soaks up the custard and gives the pudding its soft, bulky body.
Eggs
Set the custard so it holds together, and the whites give a light, airy topping.
Milk
Provides the liquid that moistens the bread and forms the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Whisk the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks so the topping stays light. Underwhipped whites stay runny and sink into the pudding, while overwhipped whites turn grainy and collapse as they bake.

“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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