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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Beat the yolks of the eggs slightly.
Add sugar, butter, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind to the yolks.
Mix potato starch in a little cold water and gradually add scalded milk.
Combine the milk mixture with the egg mixture and cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly until thick.
Finish and serve
Fold in the beaten egg whites.
Pour into a mold, chill, and serve with cream and sugar.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard and whites lighten the pudding when folded in.
- Potato starch
- Gelatinises when heated with the milk, thickening the pudding to a smooth set.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the pudding, which thickens as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the tartness of the lemon.
- Lemon
- Provides acidity and aroma from the juice and grated rind.
The step that matters
Cooking the custard in the double boiler. Stirring constantly keeps the egg yolks from scrambling against the hot pan. Starch thickens as it heats, so the pudding should be cooked only until thick and then removed to avoid a lumpy or grainy texture.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, lemon, sugar, butter):
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Sweet potatofits about as well
- Potatothe original
- Leekfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, lemon, sugar, 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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