Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Bread Pudding Made with Yeast
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
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Grease a baking dish and place the cubed bread inside.
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine warm milk, beaten eggs, and yeast; pour over the bread and mix well.
In another bowl, mix sugar, nutmeg, and flour; add to the bread mixture.
Stir in the melted fat and mix everything together thoroughly.
Cover the mixture and let it rise in a warm place for 2 hours.
Bake and serve
Bake in the preheated oven until set and golden.
Serve with a rich sauce.
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.
-
Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,377 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
-
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
-
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard as it sits.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it a custardy structure.
- Milk
- Moistens the bread and forms the liquid base that the eggs set in.
- Yeast
- Ferments during the rise, adding a light, airy texture and a yeasty flavor.
- Flour
- Thickens the soaked mixture so it holds together rather than turning watery.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown at the surface.
The step that matters
Letting the mixture rise for 2 hours. The yeast needs warm time to ferment and aerate the soaked bread. Rising too short leaves a dense pudding, while the yeast needs active fermentation before baking sets the structure.
Swap the raisin
The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, nutmeg, milk, flour, egg):
- Raisinthe original
- Vanillafits about as well
- Figfits less well
- Lemonfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, nutmeg, milk, flour, egg. 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
You might also like
Soft Ginger Bread85 recipes
Orange Potato Bread80 recipes
Bread Crumb Cakes30 recipes
Gingerbread25 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.