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 Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Assemble
Layer sliced bread in a pudding bowl.
Add a layer of fruit, sprinkle with sugar, and add small lumps of butter.
Repeat layers until the bowl is full.
Steam and serve
Place a plate on top and steam for at least 2 hours.
Turn out a few minutes before serving to let the juice penetrate the top layer.
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.
-
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Bread + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,638 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sliced bread
- Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the juices as it steams.
- Fruit
- Adds moisture and sweetness that soften the bread as it steams.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps draw out its juice.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, coating the bread layers as it melts.
The step that matters
Steam for at least 2 hours. Steaming gently and for long enough lets the bread soften and absorb the fruit juice evenly. Rushing this leaves dry or unevenly set layers.
“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.
More bread pudding recipes
You might also like
Soft Ginger Bread85 recipes
Orange Potato Bread80 recipes
Bread Crumb Cakes30 recipes
Gingerbread25 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.