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Dessert

Transparent Puddings

A buttery, lemony pudding baked in pastry shells and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Transparent 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 filling

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Beat in the egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon rind, nutmeg, and brandy.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the pastry and line the tart pans with it.

  2. Fill the pastry shells with the mixture.

  3. Bake until nearly done.

Finish and serve

  1. Whip the reserved egg whites with a little powdered sugar to make meringue.

  2. Spread the meringue on top of the puddings and lightly color it.

  3. Let cool completely before serving.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the filling a light, tender body and rich fat.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for a fluffy base and adds sweetness to the filling.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the filling; whites are whipped into meringue for the topping.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich filling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until nearly done. The filling is set by egg proteins, which firm as they heat. Stopping just short of fully done keeps it tender and prevents curdling or a dry, rubbery texture, since it continues to set as it cools.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, nutmeg, brandy, 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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