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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, bread crumbs, butter, sugar, egg yolks, grated coconut, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cocoa-nut Bread 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 the base

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the egg yolks, bread crumbs, and milk; mix well.

  4. Thoroughly incorporate the grated coconut.

Bake and top

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

  2. While baking, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gradually mix in 1 cup of sugar and the lemon juice.

  4. Spread the meringue over the pudding and bake for a few more minutes.

  5. Serve with 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard, while whites whipped with sugar form the meringue topping.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and egg, giving the pudding its body and soft crumb.
Milk
Provides the liquid that sets with the eggs into a tender custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the meringue whites stay stable when whipped.
Grated coconut
Adds coconut flavor and a chewy texture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be whipped until stiff and sugar added gradually so the meringue holds its shape and bakes into a stable, airy topping rather than weeping or collapsing.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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