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Dessert

Mountain-dew Pudding

A baked pudding made from rolled crackers, milk, eggs, sugar, and lemon flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. 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 base

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

  2. Mix the finely rolled crackers, milk, and egg yolks in a bowl.

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

Make the meringue and finish

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and a pinch of salt while continuing to beat.

  3. Flavor the mixture with lemon, then pour it over the baked pudding.

  4. Return the pudding to the oven until the top is delicately browned.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Crackers
Crushed crackers soak up milk and thicken the base, giving the pudding body.
Egg yolks
Egg yolks enrich the base and help it set as it bakes into a custard.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light foam that gives the topping lift.
Sugar
Sugar sweetens the meringue and helps stabilize the whipped whites.
Milk
Milk hydrates the crackers and forms the liquid that sets into the custard.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks before sugar is added gradually. Under-beaten or greasy whites will not hold air, and the topping will collapse or weep during browning.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, 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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