Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Beat the yolks of the eggs with 2 tablespoons of sugar until smooth.
Stir in the juice and grated yellow rind of the lemon.
Add 2 tablespoons of boiling water and cook in a double boiler, stirring occasionally until thick like cream.
Make the meringue and serve
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually beat in 2 tablespoons of sugar until it resembles meringue.
Fold the meringue into the lemon mixture while it is still hot.
Serve with cake or crackers.
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.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the lemon custard and whites whip into the meringue that gives the pudding its light texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites into a meringue.
- Lemon
- Provides the juice for acidity and the grated rind for aroma.
The step that matters
Cooking the custard until thick. The yolks thicken as they heat gently; stirring in a double boiler prevents scorching and curdling, so the custard should be stopped when it is thick like cream.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Datesfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against 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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