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Dessert

Mountain Dew Pudding

A baked pudding made with milk, egg yolks, shredded coconut, cracker crumbs, lemon extract, topped with a glossy egg white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mountain Dew 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 the pudding

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine milk, egg yolks, shredded coconut, rolled cracker crumbs, and lemon extract.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.

Make the topping and finish

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add sugar and continue beating until glossy.

  2. Spread the frosting over the pudding and return to the oven to brown.

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. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  2. Coconut + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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
Enrich the custard and help it set as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a stable, glossy meringue topping that browns.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that bakes into a soft, custardy pudding.
Rolled cracker crumbs
Add body and absorb liquid, giving the pudding structure as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it stay glossy and stable.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites need to be whipped until they hold stiff peaks before sugar is added gradually. Under-beaten whites will not hold a firm, glossy topping, and over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, lemon, 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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