Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the filling
Beat the yolks of 3 eggs with 9 tablespoons of sugar.
Add the juice of 2 lemons, 1 tablespoon of flour, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, and ½ cup of sweet milk; mix well.
Pour the batter into a pie crust and bake until set.
Top and brown
Beat the whites of 3 eggs with 3 tablespoons of sugar until frothy.
Spread the egg white mixture over the baked pudding and return to the oven to brown lightly.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the filling as they set and add richness to the custard.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that sharpens the sweetness and gives the pudding its flavor.
- Flour
- Helps thicken the batter so the baked filling holds its shape.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat that makes the filling smoother and richer.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and creaminess to the batter.
- Egg whites
- Whipped with sugar, they form a light topping that browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Bake until the filling is just set. Underbaking leaves the filling runny, while overbaking tightens the egg proteins, making the custard grainy and dense.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, butter, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, butter, milk. 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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