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Dessert

Delicious Citron Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with eggs, sugar, butter, preserved citron, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Delicious Citron Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until very thick and light.

  2. Gradually stir in the sugar while beating continuously.

  3. Mix in the melted butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line 2 deep pie plates with puff pastry.

  2. Cut preserved citron into thin slices and lay them over the pastry, leaving a margin around the edges.

  3. Fill the pastry with the batter and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  4. Sift finely pulverized white sugar over the pudding when removed from the oven.

  5. Serve hot or cold.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks are beaten to build a thick, light batter that gives the pudding its structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it thicken and hold its beaten airiness.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a tender, smooth texture.
Preserved citron
Provides the sweet, aromatic citrus flavour that defines the pudding.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky crust that holds the batter while it bakes.

The step that matters

Beat the yolks until very thick and light. Thorough beating traps air in the yolks and builds volume before the sugar and butter go in. Under-beaten yolks give a dense, heavy pudding instead of a light, tender one.

“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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