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 ↓
Lemon 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 base
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine milk, bread crumbs, sugar, egg yolks, butter, and lemon rind.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.
Top and brown
Once baked, spread a layer of jelly on top.
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add sugar and lemon juice.
Spread the egg white mixture over the jelly and brown in the oven.
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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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread crumbs
- Soaks up the milk and gives the pudding its soft, tender body.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the base and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a stiff foam that forms a light topping which browns in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and, added gradually, helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that moistens the crumbs and carries the custard to a soft set.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender crumb.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten to a firm foam before the sugar and lemon juice are added gradually. Under-beaten whites stay runny and can slide off the jelly, while sugar added too fast weakens the foam.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, sugar, egg, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, sugar, egg, butter. 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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