Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, stir together the yolks of the eggs, sugar, water, lemon zest, and lemon juice.
Soak the crackers or cake slices in warm water and lay them in the bottom of a baking dish.
Make the custard
Pour the custard mixture over the soaked crackers or cake.
Bake until firm.
Make the frosting and finish
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy, then gradually add 6 tablespoons of sugar and beat well.
Once the custard is done, pour the frosting over it.
Return to the oven and brown the frosting.
Serve warm or 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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
-
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the lemon custard as they set during baking, giving it a rich, smooth body.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a foam that bakes into a light, sweet meringue topping.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and, when whipped with the whites, stabilises the meringue.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that gives the custard its bright, tart flavour.
- Crackers or cake slices
- Soak up the custard to form a soft base layer under the set custard.
The step that matters
Bake the custard until firm, then brown the frosting. Egg yolks set at moderate oven heat; overbaking can make the custard curdle or weep, while underbaking leaves it runny. Browning the meringue needs watching because it can scorch quickly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Datesfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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