Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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
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.
Prepare
Grate the yellow rind from the lemons and squeeze out the juice.
In a bowl, stir the egg yolks into the sugar and water.
Soften the crackers or cake slices in warm water and lay them in the bottom of a baking dish.
Make and bake the pudding
Pour the custard mixture over the crackers or cake and bake until firm at 350°F (175°C).
Make the frosting and brown
Beat the egg whites to a froth, then gradually add the sugar and beat well.
Once the custard is done, pour the frosting over it and return to the oven to brown.
Serve
Serve warm or cold.
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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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 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).
Lemon and sugar 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as they set when heated, giving the pudding its body.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that forms the light topping and browns in the oven.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the whipped whites when added gradually.
- Crackers or cake slices
- Soak up the custard to form a soft, tender base layer.
- Lemons
- Zest adds aroma and juice adds acidity that brightens the custard.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until they hold a foam before adding sugar. Whites must be beaten to a stable foam with sugar added gradually; underbeaten or deflated whites will weep and fail to brown into a light topping.
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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