Why it works: Rose and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,174 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. 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.
Make the filling
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat the eggs until frothy and add them to the butter mixture.
Mix in the brandy, rose water, lemon rind, and lemon juice.
Fold in the grated cracker or cornmeal.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.
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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Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,174 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Brandy + rosetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together560 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,127 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the pudding a rich, tender body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps cream with the butter to create a light structure.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to give the filling its firm, custard-like structure.
- Brandy
- Adds aroma and flavor depth to the filling.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich filling.
- Grated cracker or cornmeal
- Absorbs liquid and helps thicken the filling as it bakes.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves the filling runny, while overbaking can make it curdled, dry, or cracked.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, brandy, rose):
- Vanillafits better
- Currantfits better
- Raspberryfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, brandy, rose. 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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