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Dessert

Coen Stakoh Lemon Pudding

A lemon pudding made with lemon rind, juice, sugar, corn starch, milk, butter, eggs, and a sauce of corn starch, milk, egg whites, sugar, brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Coen Stakoh Lemon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Grate the rind of the lemons and combine with the juice, sugar, and corn starch.

  2. Stir this mixture into enough cold water to make it smooth.

  3. Heat the milk in a pot until boiling.

  4. Add the lemon mixture, stirring constantly until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Stir in the butter and eggs, being careful not to burn it.

  7. Once thick, pour into small cups or molds that have been dipped in cold water.

  8. Let sit for one hour to set before turning out.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, blend 1 ounce of corn starch with a little cold milk until smooth.

  2. Pour in 1 pint of boiling milk and stir.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with sugar and brandy.

  4. Add the beaten mixture to the sauce.

  5. Heat the sauce gently while stirring until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the lemon mixture and the sauce as it heats, giving a smooth, set texture.
Eggs
Enrich and thicken the pudding and add structure to the sauce when beaten whites are folded in.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the pudding and the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and the sauce and balances the lemon's acidity.
Lemons
Provide the aroma from the rind and the acidic, bright flavor from the juice.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter and eggs off the heat. Eggs can scramble if they meet very hot starch mixture, so removing the pan from heat first and stirring steadily keeps the custard smooth rather than grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, milk, butter, egg, sauce, brandy. 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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