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Dessert

Lemon Pudding

A baked lemon custard made with sugar, butter, eggs, lemon rind, lemon juice, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,127 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Lemon Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Whisk the eggs.

  3. Add the whisked eggs to the butter and sugar mixture.

  4. Stir in the lemon juice and grated rind.

Assemble and bake

  1. Make a paste.

  2. Cover your pie plate with the paste.

  3. Pour the lemon mixture into the pie plate.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

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. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps create a creamy, tender texture when beaten with butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and becomes creamy when beaten with sugar.
Eggs
Provide structure, setting the filling as they cook in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake in the preheated oven until set. Egg proteins set with heat and can curdle or turn grainy if overbaked, so the filling should be removed once it has just firmed up.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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