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Dessert

A Lemon Pudding

A lemon pudding made with grated lemon rind, sponge cakes, butter, milk, eggs, lemon juice, sugar, candied peel, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

A Lemon Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the base

  1. Grate the rind of 3 lemons into a bowl.

  2. Add 6 sponge cakes and 2 ounces of butter.

  3. Pour 1 pint of boiling milk over the mixture and let it soak.

  4. Beat the soaked mixture with a fork.

Make the custard

  1. In another bowl, beat 4 egg yolks and 2 eggs together.

  2. Mix the eggs with the soaked cake mixture, juice of 1 lemon, sugar to taste, and 1 ounce of candied lemon peel.

Bake

  1. Line a baking dish with puff pastry, pour the pudding mixture into it.

  2. Bake in a warm oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 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

Eggs
Egg yolks and whole eggs set the custard, giving the pudding its body when baked.
Sponge cakes
Soaked in hot milk, they soften and absorb liquid, forming the bulk of the pudding.
Milk
Boiling milk soaks the sponge cakes, moistening them and carrying flavour through the mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, more tender texture to the pudding.
Lemon rind
Grated rind supplies concentrated lemon aroma, since the oils sit in the peel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the rich custard.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, so the pudding sets firm only when fully baked. Underbaking leaves it loose and wet in the centre, while overbaking can make the egg curdle and turn grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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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