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Dessert

English Lemon Pudding

A baked pastry dessert with preserves, lemon pulp and juice, sugar, butter, breadcrumbs, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

English Lemon Pudding

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Place the pastry crust in a deep dish and layer it with your chosen preserves.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, butter, bread crumbs, lemon pulp and juice, and the yolks of the eggs.

  2. Spread this mixture over the preserves and bake for 30 minutes.

Top and brown

  1. Remove from the oven and beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the pudding and sprinkle with white sugar.

  3. Return the pudding to the oven to brown.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 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

Egg yolks
Bind the filling and add richness to the lemon mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light topping that sets and browns.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the filling body and a soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the topping brown.
Lemon
Provides acidity and bright lemon flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks so the topping stays light and airy. Under-whipped whites will sink and turn dense, while over-whipped whites turn grainy and can separate in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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