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Dessert

Strawberry Meringue Pudding

A pudding made from soaked bread crumbs, milk, sugar, lemon, eggs, butter, topped with strawberries and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Strawberry Meringue Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk until soft.

  2. Add sugar, salt, beaten egg yolks, grated lemon rind, and melted butter to the soaked bread crumbs. Mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a shallow baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes, or until set.

Top and brown

  1. Once done, cover the top with sweetened crushed strawberries.

  2. Make meringue by beating the egg whites and gradually adding powdered sugar until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the meringue over the strawberries.

  4. Brown the meringue in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the soft, custard-like body of the pudding.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the base as it sets; whites whip into the stiff meringue topping.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and sets into a tender custard.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the egg whites to sweeten and stabilize the meringue.
Strawberries
Add fruity moisture and acidity that contrasts with the sweet meringue.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be beaten gradually with sugar until stiff peaks form. Under-beaten whites stay runny and weep, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy, so the topping may not hold or brown evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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