Skip to main content
Dessert

Transparent Puddings

A light dessert made with egg yolks, sugar, butter, nutmeg, and topped with a lemon‑flavored meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Transparent Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into tart shells.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with 4 tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of lemon extract to make the meringue.

  2. Spread the meringue on top of the puddings.

  3. Brown lightly in the oven.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the filling, giving it structure as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue hold its shape.
Lemon extract
Adds bright aroma to the meringue topping.

The step that matters

Brown lightly in the oven. Meringue sugar browns quickly at high heat, so it can scorch before the topping is set. Watch it closely and remove the puddings once the peaks are lightly golden.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, nutmeg, cream. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes