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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A custard‑filled bread pudding made with sliced bread, butter, currants, eggs, milk, sugar, and flavored with 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.

Assemble

  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 and mix with the milk and sugar.

  2. Add grated lemon peel or cinnamon for flavor.

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; if it comes out clean, the pudding is done.

  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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its body and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that soaks into the bread and sets.
Bread
Soaks up the custard and forms the pudding's layered structure.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown lightly in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its browning at the surface.

The step that matters

Testing for doneness with a knife. Eggs in the custard set as they reach roughly 160 to 180°F, so pulling the pudding too early leaves it runny, while overbaking makes it grainy and weeping. A knife coming out clean shows the custard has set.

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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