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
Make the filling
Melt the butter and pour it over the powdered sugar, stirring until cold.
Grate the lemon rind and add it to the mixture.
Beat the eggs well, add them along with the lemon juice, and stir until completely mixed together.
Bake and serve
Bake the pudding with a pastry crust around the dish.
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 + 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).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
- Powdered loaf sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and dissolves evenly into the melted butter.
- Eggs
- Thicken the filling and help it set when baked.
- Lemon juice
- Adds bright acidity that balances the sweetness.
- Lemon rind
- Adds fragrant lemon aroma from the oils in the peel.
The step that matters
Cooling the butter before adding the eggs. Stir the butter and sugar until cold before adding the eggs. Hot butter can scramble beaten eggs and make the filling grainy, so the mixture must be cool before the eggs and juice go in.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonthe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Figfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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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