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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A bread pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, sugar, eggs, topped with jelly and meringue, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Queen of Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the pudding

  1. Combine bread crumbs, milk, sugar, and egg yolks in a bowl.

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

  3. Spread jelly over the top once baked.

Top and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the jelly and return to the oven to brown.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a tender, sliceable base.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff foam that forms the meringue topping, which sets and browns in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and egg mixture to form the body of the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the bread absorbs and that the eggs set into custard.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the whites, sweetening the meringue and helping it hold its shape.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites. Whites must be beaten until stiff and any trace of yolk or fat avoided, since fat stops them from foaming. Adding the sugar gradually stabilizes the foam so the meringue holds its shape when browned.

“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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