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Dessert

Semolina Pudding

A baked semolina custard made with milk, butter, sugar, lemon rind, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Semolina Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. In a saucepan, bring 1 pint of milk to a simmer.

  2. Gradually stir in 2 tablespoons of semolina and cook for 7–8 minutes.

  3. Add 2 oz of butter, 3 oz of sifted sugar, and the grated rind of 1 lemon.

  4. While the mixture is still hot, beat in 4 eggs gradually and briskly.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350 °F (175 °C) for 30 minutes.

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. Semolina + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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. Semolina + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together351 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Semolina
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding structure and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer texture and richer flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its tender texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the semolina thickens.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs while the mixture is hot. Beating the eggs in gradually and briskly into hot mixture helps them blend evenly without scrambling, so the pudding bakes smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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