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Dessert

LA Regina Pudding

A layered custard pudding made with bread crumbs, sponge cake, macaroons, jelly, sherry, and lemon, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,232 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

LA Regina Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk.

  2. Cream the sugar with the butter.

  3. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  4. Mix the whipped yolks with the soaked bread crumbs, lemon juice, and grated lemon peel.

  5. Fold in the stiffened egg whites gently.

Layer and bake

  1. Butter a round mold and layer fine dry crumbs at the bottom.

  2. Add a layer of macaroons, then half an inch of the mixture.

  3. Layer slices of sponge cake spread with jelly, more macaroons, and wet with sherry.

  4. Repeat layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with custard on top.

  5. Cover the mold, place it in a pan of boiling water, and bake for 1 hour.

  6. Uncover and brown the top.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a hot platter and pour over a sauce made of warmed currant jelly, melted butter, and 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned 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
Whipped yolks and stiffened whites give the pudding its light, set custard structure.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they add body and moisture to the custard layers.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps tenderize the texture.
Sponge cake
Soaks up jelly and sherry, keeping the layers moist and giving structure.
Macaroons
Add almond-rich flavor and a crisp, chewy texture between the custard layers.
Sherry
Moistens the cake and macaroon layers and adds aromatic flavor.

The step that matters

Cover and steam in boiling water. Baking the mold in a water bath keeps the custard gentle and evenly set, preventing curdling, cracks, or a dry, rubbery texture.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Applebetter flavor fit
  3. Figbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, butter, egg, crab, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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