Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
To Make Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Make a paste with flour and lard or butter, adding a little cold water.
Line a soup plate with the paste.
Beat the eggs well in a bowl.
Squeeze the juice and pulp from the lemons, and grate a little peel.
Mix the lemon juice, pulp, grated peel, and sugar with the eggs.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into the lined plate and add a small piece of butter on top.
Cover with paste and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes, or bake uncovered if preferred.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the paste that lines and encloses the filling, giving the crust its structure.
- Lard or butter
- Fat in the paste that makes the crust tender and flaky as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Beaten into the filling, where they help it set when baked.
- Lemons
- Juice, pulp and peel supply the sharp acidity and lemon aroma of the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart lemon filling and balances its acidity.
- Butter
- A small piece dotted on the filling adds richness as it melts during baking.
The step that matters
Cover with paste and bake. Eggs in the filling set with heat, so the oven must be hot enough to cook them through before the crust over-browns. Baking time governs whether the filling is fully set.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, sugar):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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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