Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓
Uneeda Cracker 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine the milk, cream, and grated lemon rind.
In another bowl, mix the beaten egg yolks with ½ cup of sugar.
Add the milk mixture to the egg yolk mixture and stir in the broken crackers and currants or raisins.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.
Top and serve
Spread currant jelly over the top after baking.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the remaining ¼ cup of sugar dissolved in lemon juice.
Spread the meringue over the pudding and brown it in the oven.
Serve hot.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon and sugar 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
- Crackers
- Soak up the custard and give the pudding its soft, bready body.
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard, and whites form the meringue topping.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that the crackers absorb and the custard sets from.
- Cream
- Adds fat for a richer, smoother custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps the meringue hold its shape.
- Lemon rind
- Adds bright citrus aroma to the custard.
The step that matters
Beating the meringue. Egg whites should be beaten until stiff, with sugar added gradually so it dissolves and stabilizes the foam. Under-beaten or unstable foam can weep or collapse, leaving a thin, uneven topping.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, lemon, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Orangefits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, lemon, egg, sugar. 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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