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Dessert

Boiled Lemon Pudding

A boiled lemon pudding made with water or milk, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and rind, egg yolks, butter, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Lemon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine 2 ½ cups water or milk and 1 cup sugar in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Dissolve 4 heaping teaspoons cornstarch in ½ cup water and stir into the boiling mixture.

  3. Boil for a few minutes while stirring constantly, then remove from heat.

  4. Add the juice and grated rind of 3 lemons, the beaten egg yolks, and 1 teaspoon butter; mix well.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into small dishes and let it cool to thicken.

  2. Before serving, top each dish with a meringue made from beaten egg whites, powdered sugar, and a little lemon flavoring.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, sliceable custard as it cools.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set to a creamy texture.
Lemon juice and rind
Provide the sharp acidity and bright aroma that define the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the acidity of the lemon.
Egg whites
Whipped into the meringue topping that gives a light, airy finish.

The step that matters

Boiling with cornstarch while stirring constantly. Cornstarch must reach a boil with constant stirring to swell and thicken fully; otherwise it can stay thin or form lumps. Stirring also prevents scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More lemon pudding recipes

Baked 36Boiled 25Cold 13Sauce 9Steamed 8Cornstarch 6 See all 470 →

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