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Dessert

Lemon Meringue Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, bread crumbs, eggs, butter, lemon, and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Lemon Meringue 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.

Make the pudding

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks, sugar, and butter, creaming together.

  3. Mix in the lemon juice and grated rind.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until firm and slightly browned. Remove from the oven.

Top and serve

  1. Cover with meringue made from whipped egg whites, powdered sugar, and a little lemon juice.

  2. Brown the meringue slightly. Sift powdered sugar over the meringue.

  3. Serve cold.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, and whipped whites form the light meringue topping.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they give the pudding body and a soft, tender texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into the custard when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the pudding.
White sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create a soft, tender set.
Lemon
Its juice and rind add acidity and bright aroma that cut the richness.

The step that matters

Bake until firm and slightly browned. Underbaking leaves the custard runny, while overbaking can make the egg proteins curdle and the texture grainy. Watch for a set centre before removing from the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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