Why it works: Milk and bread 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 and Butter Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make a custard by boiling the milk with lemon peel and sugar.
Beat the egg and mix it into the milk, then heat until thickened.
Butter the slices of bread or French roll and soak them in the custard for 1-2 hours.
Layer the soaked bread in a dish, sprinkling currants and pounded sugar between each layer.
If desired, add sweetmeats on top.
Pour over the remaining milk mixed with 2 beaten eggs.
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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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,398 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, lemon, sugar, bread):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Orangefits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, lemon, sugar, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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