Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Combine flour, sugar, bread crumbs, chopped suet, lemon juice, and lemon zest in a basin.
Add the eggs and enough milk to reach a porridge-like consistency.
Boil the mixture in a basin for 1 hour.
Serve
Serve with or without sauce.
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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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together.
- Bread crumbs
- Add body and absorb moisture, giving the pudding a soft, thick texture.
- Chopped suet
- Adds fat that makes the pudding rich and moist as it cooks.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
- Granulated sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the lemon's acidity.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture in a basin for 1 hour. The pudding must cook steadily for the full hour so the eggs and starches set and the texture firms. Cutting the time short leaves it wet and loose in the centre.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, bread, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, bread, egg, milk. 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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