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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A baked pudding made from bread crumbs, sugar, eggs, lemon, butter, topped with jelly and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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.

Prepare the base

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

  2. Mix the bread-crumbs, sugar, egg yolks, lemon rind, and butter until well combined.

  3. Bake the mixture until well done.

Top and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth, adding the powdered sugar and lemon juice.

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

  3. Place in the oven until 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread-crumbs
Form the soft body of the pudding and absorb the custard-like moisture from the yolks.
Egg yolks
Enrich and set the base, giving it a tender, custardy structure when baked.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that bakes into a light, airy topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and helps the topping brown lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the crumb and improving flavour.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth. Whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks so the topping stays light. Under-whipped or greasy whites collapse and turn dense when baked, so bowls and beaters should be free of any yolk or fat.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, 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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