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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A lemon‑flavored custard pudding topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Delmonico Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Bring 1 quart of milk to a boil and flavor with lemon.

  2. Let the milk cool.

  3. In a bowl, beat 5 egg yolks with 5 tablespoons of white sugar.

  4. Blend 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  5. Mix the cornstarch mixture with the egg and sugar mixture.

  6. Pour this mixture into the cooled milk.

  7. Thicken the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a baking dish and bake for 20 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, cover with meringue.

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

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Milk
Forms the body of the pudding, setting into a creamy custard as it thickens and cools.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness, binding the pudding as it sets.
White sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps balance the tartness of the lemon.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by swelling with heat, giving the pudding its smooth body.
Meringue
Forms a light, sweet topping that adds contrast to the creamy pudding beneath.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg yolks can curdle and cornstarch can lump if the custard gets too hot or is left unstirred. Gentle heat with constant stirring keeps the mixture smooth as it thickens.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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