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Dessert

Lemon Pudding

A baked lemon custard made with eggs, sugar, corn starch, butter, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 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

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

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in a little cold water.

  3. Add the boiling water to the corn starch mixture.

  4. Stir in the juice and grated rind of the lemons.

  5. Combine the egg yolk and sugar mixture with the lemon mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a baking dish and bake for about 15 minutes.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites on top 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. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 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

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the filling, and beaten whites form the topping.
Corn starch
Starch thickens the liquid into a set, spoonable pudding as it heats.
Lemons
Juice supplies acidity and grated rind adds bright lemon aroma.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the sharpness of the lemon.

The step that matters

Add the boiling water to the corn starch mixture.. Corn starch only thickens properly once it is heated past its gelatinization point, so the water must be boiling. Dissolving the starch in cold water first keeps it from clumping before it thickens.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, corn, 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.

More lemon pudding recipes

Baked 36Boiled 25Cold 13Sauce 9Steamed 8Cornstarch 6 See all 470 →

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