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Dessert

Lemon Pudding, Cold

A chilled dessert made from milk, sugar, eggs, cornstarch, butter, and lemon juice and zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lemon Pudding, Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Wet the cornstarch in a small amount of the milk, then stir it into the boiling milk, stirring constantly for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat, stir in the butter, and let it cool.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together, then mix them into the milk and cornstarch mixture.

  5. Gradually stir in the lemon juice and grated rind until smooth.

Chill

  1. Pour into a well-buttered dish and refrigerate until 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable pudding as it heats and sets.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and add richness and body to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavor that cuts the richness of the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens and the yolks enrich.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch into the boiling milk. Cornstarch must be wet first and stirred constantly while boiling so its starch granules swell evenly and thicken the milk without lumps. Stopping the stirring can leave lumps or a scorched base.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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