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Dessert

Cocoanut Bread Pudding

A sweet pudding made from stale bread, coconut, butter, milk, eggs, sugar, and flavoring, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cocoanut Bread 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Baste the melted butter over the bread blocks.

  3. Arrange the bread and coconut in alternate layers in a baking dish.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs, then add the sugar and beat until thick.

  2. Stir in the milk and flavoring, then pour into the pudding dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until firm.

  2. Serve hot with Sultana Sauce, Foamy Orange Sauce, or Jam 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Coconut + buttertop 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

Stale bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the egg custard.
Coconut
Adds flavor and a chewy texture between the bread layers.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the bread before baking.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding into a firm custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the bread absorbs.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it beat to a thick texture.

The step that matters

Bake until firm. The eggs in the milk custard set as they heat. Underbaking leaves the pudding loose and wet in the center, while the bread and coconut keep the surface from drying out too quickly.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

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