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Dessert

Lemon Pudding

A baked lemon pudding made with soda biscuits, milk, butter, egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice and rind, topped with lemon dressing and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

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.

Prepare the pudding

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

  2. Mix the crushed soda biscuits, milk, butter, egg yolks, and sugar together.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.

Make the lemon dressing

  1. Combine the lemon juice, lemon rind, sugar, and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Dissolve the cornstarch in a little water, then add it to the boiling mixture and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

Finish and brown

  1. Once the pudding is cooked, pour the lemon dressing over it.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and spread them on top of the pudding.

  3. Brown slightly in the oven.

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. Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

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

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

  5. Biscuit + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the custard base and help it set into a soft, creamy texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms a light, browned topping.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon dressing as it boils, giving it body.
Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity and aroma that flavour the dressing.
Soda biscuits
Crumbs add body and structure to the baked base.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks with no trace of yolk or grease, otherwise they will not hold their shape or brown evenly on top of the pudding.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, milk, butter, 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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Baked 36Boiled 25Cold 13Sauce 9Steamed 8Cornstarch 6 See all 470 →

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