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Dessert

Meringue Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from stale bread crumbs, milk, egg yolks, butter, sugar, lemon rind, topped with preserves and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Meringue Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard base

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine stale bread crumbs, milk, egg yolks, butter, sugar, salt, and lemon rind.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 45 minutes.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. Once cool, spread the top with preserves or jelly.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add powdered sugar.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pudding and brown it in the oven.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding, soaking up the milk and custard to give a soft, set texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set when baked, giving a tender, creamy crumb.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the bread and forms the custard, keeping the pudding moist.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the baked custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the top brown during baking.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and dissolves easily into the whipped egg whites for a smooth topping.

The step that matters

Spreading and browning the meringue. Egg whites whipped to soft peaks must be spread over the pudding and baked only until lightly browned. Overbaking can cause the meringue to weep or toughen, while underbaking leaves it raw and unset.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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