Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Beat the yolks of the eggs in a bowl.
Add sugar, grated lemon rind, and lemon juice, and mix well.
Cook the mixture in a double boiler until smooth.
Finish and chill
Beat in the egg whites until fluffy.
Pour the mixture into sherbet cups and chill before serving.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard as they cook, and whipped whites add an airy, light texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
- Lemon juice
- Adds bright acidity and the main tart lemon flavor.
- Grated lemon rind
- Adds aromatic lemon oil for fragrance without extra sourness.
The step that matters
Cook the mixture in a double boiler until smooth. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot. Gentle, indirect heat from the double boiler thickens the custard evenly, and stirring keeps it smooth.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Datesfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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