Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Queen 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.
Make the custard
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, milk, sugar, egg yolks, lemon rind, and butter.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake until set but not watery.
Top and finish
In another bowl, whip the egg whites until soft peaks form.
Gradually add 1 cup of sugar and lemon juice until stiff peaks form.
Spread a layer of jelly or jam over the baked pudding.
Top with the meringue.
Return to the oven and bake until the meringue is lightly browned.
Serve cold with cream.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Lemon + raspberrytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,109 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Milk + raspberrytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,014 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread crumbs
- Form the body of the pudding and soak up the milk and egg mixture.
- Egg yolks
- Set the custard and enrich its texture as it bakes.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a stiff foam that forms the light, browned meringue topping.
- Milk
- Provides moisture and liquid that the bread crumbs absorb and the eggs set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and stabilizes the whipped egg whites in the meringue.
The step that matters
Bake the custard until set but not watery. Underbaking leaves the egg-thickened custard loose and watery, while overbaking makes it dry and curdled. Baking until just set gives a firm base that holds the jam and meringue.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, sugar, egg, butter, raspberry):
- Vanillafits better
- Peachfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, egg, butter, raspberry. 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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