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Dessert

Lemon Bread Pudding

A baked dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, bread crumbs, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Bread 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.

Make the custard base

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together.

  3. Stir in the milk, bread crumbs, and lemon rind.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until light brown.

Top and finish

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks with the powdered sugar.

  2. Add the lemon juice and spread the mixture over the pudding.

  3. Return the pudding to the oven for a few minutes 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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and sets into a custard.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard while whites whip into a light, stiff topping.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and eggs to give the pudding its body.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the mixture brown in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it hold stiff peaks.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks so the topping stays airy. Under-beaten whites collapse and weep, while over-beaten whites turn grainy and dry. Clean, grease-free bowls and utensils help the whites whip fully.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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