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Dessert

Lemon Pudding, Cold

A chilled lemon custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, cornstarch, butter, lemon juice, and zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lemon Pudding, Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, bring 2 cups of milk to a boil.

  2. Wet 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in a small amount of the boiling milk, then stir it into the rest of the milk, stirring constantly for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat, stir in 1 tablespoon of butter, and let it cool.

  4. Beat the yolks and 1 cup of sugar together.

  5. Mix the beaten yolks and sugar into the cooled milk mixture.

  6. Gradually stir in the lemon juice and grated rind until smooth.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered dish.

  2. Alternatively, pour into small cups dipped in cold water.

  3. Refrigerate until cold.

  4. Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the pudding sets firm when cold.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the pudding set into a creamy custard.
Lemon juice
Adds tartness that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the acidity of the lemon.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens.

The step that matters

Wet the cornstarch before adding it to the milk. Cornstarch added dry to hot liquid clumps instead of dissolving. Mixing it first into a little cold or warm liquid lets the starch disperse, so the custard thickens smoothly while stirring.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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