Skip to main content
Dessert

Rich Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, currants, almonds, and citrus zest, boiled in a basin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rich Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Pour hot milk over bread crumbs and cover for 1 hour.

  2. Beat the eggs, strain, and mix with the soaked bread.

Mix and cook

  1. Add flour, butter, sugar, currants, almonds, orange‑flower water, and zests.

  2. Butter a basin that will just hold the mixture and line a cloth.

  3. Tie the cloth tightly over the basin and boil for 1 hour.

  4. Serve with melted butter poured over it.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body of the pudding, soaking up the milk to form a soft base.
Milk
Soaks the bread crumbs and adds moisture so the pudding stays tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a softer, more rounded mouthfeel.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and fruitiness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth tightly over the basin. A loose cloth lets water into the basin during boiling, which can make the pudding soggy and waterlogged. A snug seal keeps the mixture moist and holds its shape as it steams and sets.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More bread pudding recipes

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes