Why it works: Milk and butter 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 custard
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Stir in the cornstarch mixed with cold water when the milk boils.
Add the butter.
Set the mixture aside to cool.
Combine and set
Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until well mixed.
Add the lemon juice and grated rind.
Beat to a stiff cream.
Combine with the cooled cornstarch mixture and mix well.
Pour into a buttered dish.
Let it stand until stiff.
Make the meringue and finish
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Gradually add the sugar to the egg whites.
Spread the meringue on top of the pudding.
Brown the meringue for 1-2 minutes.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens into a custard.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, set custard texture.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help thicken the custard as it sets.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that gives the meringue its light structure.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the whipped egg white meringue.
- Lemon juice
- Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavour of the custard.
The step that matters
Gradually add the sugar to the egg whites. Adding sugar slowly while whisking lets the whites form a stable foam. Dumping it in at once can deflate the foam and stop it reaching stiff peaks, which keeps the meringue from holding its shape.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, 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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