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Dessert

Easter Pudding

A lemon-flavored pudding made with cornstarch, milk, sugar, egg whites, lemon jelly, macaroons, applesauce, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Easter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Cook cornstarch in milk for 20 minutes.

  2. Add sugar, well-beaten egg whites, and lemon flavor.

  3. Prepare lemon jelly in a mold.

  4. Drop candied violets into the jelly.

  5. Pour in the cooked cornstarch mixture.

Unmold and serve

  1. Turn the pudding out of the mold.

  2. Garnish with candied violets.

  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. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a set, sliceable pudding as it cooks.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness when beaten into the pudding.
Lemon jelly
Forms a set layer in the mold that holds the violets and gives flavor.
Macaroons
Soak up moisture and add a chewy, almond-like texture.

The step that matters

Pour in the cooked cornstarch mixture. Cornstarch must be fully cooked before adding the egg whites, or it will stay starchy and thin. Egg whites should be folded in gently so the pudding stays light and does not deflate.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, lemon, sauce, cream. 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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