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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A lemon bread pudding topped with meringue, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Queen of Puddings

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 pudding

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, sugar, beaten egg yolks, lemon rind, and butter until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set and golden brown.

Top and finish

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding the powdered sugar and lemon juice gradually.

  2. Spread a layer of jelly over the baked pudding, then top with the beaten egg whites.

  3. Return to the oven and bake until the meringue is lightly browned.

  4. Serve with sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Fine bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and soft structure that the custard-like base sets around.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to form a light meringue that browns on top.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the whipped egg white meringue.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb in the pudding base.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be whipped until firm and the sugar added gradually so the meringue holds its volume. Underbeaten whites may deflate or weep, and overbaking can make the meringue tough or shrink away from the pudding.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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