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Dessert

Lemon Puff Pudding

A baked lemon custard with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Puff Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the base

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Add the egg yolks, milk, bread crumbs, lemon rind, and lemon juice, then mix thoroughly.

  3. If the mixture is too thin, add an additional ½ cup of bread crumbs.

  4. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered pudding dish or roasting pan.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until thick or set.

Top and brown

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add ½ cup sugar and flavor with lemon juice.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture over the pudding.

  4. Return it to the oven to brown.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it thicken and set as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the pudding body so it holds its shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a soft, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue topping stay glossy and stable.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the base and keeps the dish from sticking.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be whipped to stiff peaks so the air they hold keeps the topping light. Under-whipped or greasy whites will deflate and turn the meringue dense.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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