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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A lemon bread crumb pudding topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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.

Make the custard

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

  2. Combine bread crumbs, sweet milk, sugar, egg yolks, lemon rind, butter, nutmeg, and salt in a bowl, mixing until well combined, then pour into a baking dish.

  3. Bake until set but not watery.

Top with meringue and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar and lemon juice, mixing until smooth.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pudding and return to the oven.

  4. Bake until the meringue is lightly browned.

  5. Let cool and serve cold, optionally topped with jelly or fresh fruit.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Fine bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that soak up the milk to form the pudding base.
Egg yolks
Set the custard, giving it a rich, tender structure as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Supplies the liquid that the bread crumbs absorb and that the yolks set.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.
Powdered sugar
Stabilises the whipped whites into a smooth, glossy meringue that browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it stay tender while baking.

The step that matters

Bake the custard until set but not watery. Underbaking leaves the custard loose and runny under the meringue, while overbaking makes the egg proteins tighten and weep liquid, so the base should be checked for a firm, just-set texture.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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