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Dessert

Lemon Pudding

A baked lemon custard made with butter, sugar, milk, eggs, and lemon zest and juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Lemon Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Grate the rind and squeeze the juice of the lemons.

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

Make the pudding

  1. Add the beaten egg yolks and part of the beaten egg whites.

  2. Stir in the milk and then the lemon juice and rind.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Frost with the remaining beaten egg whites mixed with a little sugar.

  2. Brown the top and serve cold without sauce.

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. Sugar + buttertop 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
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whites add lightness and form the frosting.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create the creamed base and the meringue-style frosting.
Milk
Provides moisture and liquid so the batter bakes into a soft pudding.
Lemons
Juice adds acidity and bright flavor, while the rind adds aroma.

The step that matters

Brown the top and serve cold without sauce.. Egg white frosting can weep or over-brown quickly in the oven, and the meringue-style topping needs gentle heat to set without darkening too much. Chilling lets the pudding firm so it slices cleanly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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