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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A custard-like bread pudding topped with jelly and whipped egg whites, served warm with cream.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a saucepan, combine bread crumbs and milk; cook until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolks, butter, sugar, and lemon.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.

  2. Spread jelly over the baked mixture.

  3. Beat egg whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks form.

  4. Spread the egg whites over the jelly and brown slightly in the oven.

Serve

  1. Serve warm with cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (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 bulk of the pudding and absorb milk to set into a soft body.
Milk
Hydrates the bread crumbs and forms the custard base that thickens when cooked.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and help it set firm in the oven, adding richness.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to stiff peaks, they form a light meringue that browns on top.
Jelly
Adds a sweet, fruity layer between the custard and the meringue.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites need to be whipped fully with sugar to stiff peaks so the meringue holds its shape and browns evenly. Underwhipped whites weep and sink into the jelly, while overheating can make them dry or rubbery.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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