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Dessert

Lemon Pudding, Baked

A baked lemon pudding made with egg yolks, powdered sugar, butter, lemon zest and juice, served with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Pudding, Baked

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

  1. Beat the egg yolks until frothy.

  2. Mix in the powdered sugar and warmed butter.

  3. Stir in the grated rind and strained juice of the lemon.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a shallow dish with puff pastry.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes.

  3. Turn the pudding out of the dish, sprinkle with sifted sugar, and serve.

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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken as they set in the oven, giving the pudding a custard-like body and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and a tender crumb.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and dissolves smoothly into the liquid mixture.
Lemon
Provides acidity and bright flavour, with aromatic oils from the rind.
Puff pastry
Forms the base layer, becoming crisp and golden as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg yolks thicken as they heat and coagulate. Baking too long can make the pudding grainy or watery, so it should be removed once the centre is just set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter. 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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