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Dessert

Preserves Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, eggs, lemon rind, and topped with jam or jelly and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Preserves Pudding

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Preserves Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together.

  2. Stir in the bread crumbs and boiling milk along with the lemon rind.

  3. Once the pudding is done, beat the egg whites with the white sugar until stiff.

Top and bake

  1. Spread jam or jelly over the pudding, then top with the beaten egg whites.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the top is light brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding and absorb the hot milk to set a soft, tender texture.
Milk
Provides liquid that softens the crumbs and sets into a creamy custard base.
Egg yolks
Thicken the pudding and add richness and structure as they set.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar into a stiff meringue that bakes to a light, browned topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks, because air trapped in the foam gives the topping its lift. Under-whipped whites collapse and weep, while over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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