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Dessert

Meringue Pudding

A baked pudding made from warm milk, grated bread, egg yolks, sugar, butter, lemon rind, topped with meringue and optional fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Meringue Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the pudding base

  1. Pour warm milk over grated bread.

  2. Add beaten egg yolks, sugar, butter, and lemon rind; mix well.

  3. Bake the mixture in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

Top and brown

  1. Beat egg whites until light; gradually add sugar and lemon juice.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture over the pudding once cooled.

  3. For added flavor, layer stewed apples or preserves between the pudding and egg whites before browning.

  4. Return to the oven to brown slightly.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 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. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread
Soaks up the warm milk to form a soft, custard-like body for the pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the pudding base as they set during baking.
Egg whites
Whipped into a light foam that bakes into a airy, sweet meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and, when whipped with the whites, stabilizes the meringue.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender, moist texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and sets into the custard.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until light before adding sugar. Whites must form a stable foam; underbeaten or greasy whites won't hold air, so the meringue can weep or stay flat. Adding sugar gradually helps it hold its shape.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, egg, sugar, butter, lemon):

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

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

More meringue pudding recipes

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