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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A custard baked bread pudding with butter, currants, eggs, milk, sugar, and lemon peel or cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter the bread slices and layer them in a pudding dish.

  2. Sprinkle currants between the layers of bread.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs until light and mix with the milk.

  2. Sweeten to taste and add lemon peel or cinnamon.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the bread and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the custard is set.

  2. Test with a knife; it should come out clean.

  3. Serve cold in the baking dish with a simple sauce.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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

Home-made bread
Forms the structure that soaks up the custard and holds its shape.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown lightly in the oven.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy fruit between the bread layers.

The step that matters

Bake until the custard is set. Egg proteins set as they heat, so underbaking leaves a runny custard while overbaking can make it grainy or watery. The knife test checks that the centre has firmed.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, egg, milk, sugar, lemon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, egg, milk, sugar, lemon. 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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