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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A baked milk and bread crumb pudding topped with jelly and frosted with beaten egg whites and sugar.

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.

Make the custard

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine the milk, bread crumbs, butter, egg yolks, sugar, and flavoring, then mix well and pour into a baking dish.

  3. Bake until set and lightly browned.

Top and finish

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add the sugar.

  2. Spread a layer of jelly over the hot pudding, then top with the frosting.

  3. Return to the oven and brown slightly.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and set into a soft, custard-like body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into the custard.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a stable, airy meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, dissolved into the whites, stabilizes the meringue.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, softer custard texture.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites and sugar to stiff peaks. Whites must be beaten until stiff and the sugar added gradually so the meringue holds its shape and browns evenly. Under-beaten or greasy whites collapse and weep under the heat.

“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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