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Dessert

Bread, or Queen, Pudding

A baked pudding made from bread crumbs, sweet milk, eggs, brown sugar, lemon, optional apples or raisins, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,207 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Bread, or Queen, 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine bread crumbs, sweet milk, egg yolks, brown sugar, and lemon. Mix in chopped apples or preserves and raisins if desired.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake for 30 minutes.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form and spread over the pudding. Brown the meringue in the oven for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve warm with wine 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.

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. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and custard, giving the pudding its body and soft structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a tender, creamy texture when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that adds a light, airy topping that browns in the oven.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the crumbs and sets with the eggs into custard.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavor, and helps the meringue and top brown.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks can weep or turn tough if overbaked, while too little heat leaves them pale. Watch closely for a light golden top over a set custard.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar, lemon, raisin, wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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