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Dessert

Lemon Pudding

A baked lemon pudding made with butter, sugar, sponge cake, eggs, brandy, rose water, and lemon zest and juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rose and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,174 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Lemon Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the grated sponge cake and mix well.

  4. Whisk the eggs until thick, then gradually stir them in.

  5. Add the lemon juice, lemon zest, brandy, and rose water alternately, mixing well without overbeating.

Bake and serve

  1. Line your plates with pastry and pour the mixture in.

  2. Bake until set, then let cool.

  3. Sift white sugar over the top before serving.

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. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Brandy + rosetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together560 recipes

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

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving a light, tender texture and rich flavor.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding its structure and body.
Sponge cake
Adds soft crumb and body to the batter as it is finely grated in.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Lemon
Provides bright acidity and aroma from the juice and zest.

The step that matters

Mixing in the liquids without overbeating. Adding the lemon juice, brandy, and rose water alternately and mixing gently keeps the batter smooth and airy. Overbeating after the eggs are in can deflate the foam and make the pudding dense when it sets.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Currantfits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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