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 ↓
Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the pudding
Soak the bread crumbs in the milk.
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the beaten egg yolks and lemon juice and rind.
Combine the soaked bread with the butter mixture.
Pour into a buttered dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until firm and slightly brown.
Top and serve
Whip the egg whites with a little sugar and lemon juice, then spread over the pudding.
Brown slightly under the broiler and serve cold.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + breadtop 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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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Soak up the milk to form the body of the pudding.
- Eggs
- Set the pudding when baked and whipped whites give a light, airy topping.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness to the pudding's texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps the whipped whites hold their structure.
- Milk
- Provides liquid that softens the bread and moistens the custard.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity and bright aroma from the juice and grated rind.
The step that matters
Whip the egg whites and spread over the pudding. Egg whites whip best when clean and free of yolk or fat, and whipping with sugar helps them form a stable foam. Spreading the topping gently keeps it from deflating before it browns.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, butter, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, 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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