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 ↓
A Good Baked 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.
Soak the bread
Pour boiling milk over the bread crumbs and butter in a bowl.
Cover and let stand until soaked.
Make the pudding
Stir in sugar, egg yolks, candied orange rind, and nutmeg until well combined.
Let the mixture cool, then pour it into a baking dish.
Top and bake
Beat the egg whites until frothy.
Mix in the sifted sugar.
Spread the egg white mixture over the pudding.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.
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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Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,746 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the hot milk and form the soft, bulky body of the pudding.
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and set the custard; whites whip into a topping that bakes light and crisp.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that soaks the bread and sets with the eggs into a custard.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the whipped egg white topping hold its structure.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.
- Candied orange rind
- Adds sweet, bitter citrus flavour and aroma throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until frothy. Egg whites must be whipped to a foam that holds air; under-whipped or greasy whites will not hold their shape, and the topping will deflate or bake flat.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, milk, sugar, egg, nutmeg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, milk, sugar, egg, nutmeg. 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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