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 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine milk, bread crumbs, egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon rind, and butter. Mix well.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.
Make the meringue and finish
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.
Gradually add powdered sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.
Spread the meringue over the baked pudding and return to the oven until browned.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Milk
- Provides liquid that gives the pudding a soft, custardy body.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the milk and give the pudding its tender, soft structure.
- Egg yolks
- Set during baking to thicken and enrich the pudding.
- Lemon juice and rind
- Add acidity and bright lemon aroma to the pudding.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that forms the meringue topping.
- Powdered sugar
- Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and sweetens the meringue.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff peaks form, and sugar is added gradually, so the foam holds its shape and browns evenly on top instead of weeping or collapsing in the oven.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, egg, butter, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachfits about as well
- 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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