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Dessert

Lemon Pudding

A baked lemon pudding made with bread crumbs, eggs, milk, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine the grated bread crumbs, eggs, salt, powdered sugar, milk, and lemon grating.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  3. Bake until set, then remove from the oven.

Finish and brown

  1. Melt the butter and pour it over the pudding after baking.

  2. Beat the whites of 2 eggs with a little sugar until frothy.

  3. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the pudding.

  4. Return to the oven for a few moments to brown the top.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together as it bakes.
Eggs
Set the custard-like mixture when baked, giving structure to the pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness so the crumbs form a tender, pourable base.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the lemon.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, moistening the pudding and adding flavor.
Lemon grating
Provides aromatic lemon flavor and fragrant oils to the pudding.

The step that matters

Returning the meringue to the oven. Egg white topping browns quickly because proteins and sugar undergo browning reactions at high heat. Watching it closely prevents scorching while getting a golden top.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, sugar, milk, butter. 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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