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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, eggs, lemon, sponge cake, macaroons, sherry, and jam, topped with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. 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.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk.

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks, soaked bread crumbs, lemon juice, and rind.

  4. Mix to a smooth paste.

Layer and steam

  1. Butter a mold well.

  2. Add a layer of dry bread crumbs at the bottom.

  3. Place a layer of macaroons evenly on top.

  4. Wet with sherry.

  5. Add a layer of the mixture.

  6. Add slices of sponge cake.

  7. Add more macaroons.

  8. Wet with sherry.

  9. Add jam.

  10. Repeat until the mold is full.

  11. Finish with a layer of the mixture on top.

  12. Cover the mold.

  13. Steam in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

Brown and serve

  1. Remove the cover.

  2. Brown the top.

  3. Carefully turn out onto a dish.

  4. Pour over warmed currant jelly mixed with 2 tablespoons melted butter and a glass of pale sherry.

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 + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and bind the custard, helping it set into a smooth, sliceable layer.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the body of the custard layers, giving them soft structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the mixture cream to a smooth, light texture.
Macaroons
Add almond flavour and a chewy, moist texture between the custard layers.
Sponge cake
Soaks up sherry and custard, adding moisture and a tender, cake-like body.
Jam
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity that contrasts with the rich custard.

The step that matters

Steam the mold gently in the oven. Egg custard sets when its proteins coagulate; too much heat makes it curdle, weep, and turn rubbery, so the mold should cook gently under a cover.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Peasfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Cocoafits about as well

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