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Dessert

Lemon Pudding

A lemon custard baked with a sweet meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the pudding

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks, lemon rind, and lemon juice; mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add sugar to sweeten.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pudding mixture.

  3. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the meringue is golden.

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

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the pudding a light, tender richness.
Egg yolks
Thicken the lemon mixture as they set in the oven and add richness.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they form the airy meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the pudding its bright flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and, dissolved into the whites, stabilises the meringue and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff and sugar added gradually. Under-whipped whites will weep and collapse, while sugar added too early or in one go can leave the meringue dense. Properly stabilised foam holds its air during baking.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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