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Dessert

Queen Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, sugar, eggs, topped with fruit jelly and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Queen 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the custard base

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

  2. In a saucepan, heat the milk and sugar until dissolved.

  3. Add the bread crumbs and stir until combined. Let it cool slightly.

  4. Beat the eggs and mix them into the bread mixture along with vanilla extract.

  5. Pour the mixture into a baking pan, about 1 inch deep.

  6. Bake until barely set, about 20-25 minutes.

Top and finish

  1. Spread the fruit jelly or marmalade over the top.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add sifted sugar to make meringue.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pudding and bake until lightly browned.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Bread + milktop 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. Bread + vanillatop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together497 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set the custard and bind the pudding, and whites form the meringue.
Milk
Provides the liquid that gives the custard its soft, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, as sifted sugar, stabilizes the meringue.
Fruit jelly or marmalade
Adds a fruity sweetness and acidity that contrasts the rich custard.

The step that matters

Bake the custard until barely set. Overbaking squeezes moisture out of the egg proteins, leaving the custard curdled and grainy. Pulling it when just set keeps it smooth and tender while it finishes cooking from residual heat.

“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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