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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A lemon-flavored bread pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, eggs, and topped with jelly and whipped egg white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Queen of Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk until soft.

  2. Beat the egg yolks, sugar, and a pinch of salt together.

  3. Add the soaked bread and milk mixture, along with the butter and lemon rind. Mix thoroughly.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until set, ensuring it does not become watery.

  2. Spread jelly on top after baking.

  3. For the frosting, whip the egg whites, lemon juice, and ½ cup sugar until light and fluffy.

  4. Spread the whipped mixture over the pudding if desired.

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
Absorb the milk and set into a soft, tender body for the pudding.
Milk
Soaks the bread and, with the eggs, forms the custard that sets in the oven.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as it sets.
Egg whites
Whip into a light, airy foam for the frosting.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the whipped frosting hold its volume.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the frosting.

The step that matters

Baking until set, not watery. Underbaked custard stays loose and weeps liquid, while the egg proteins must fully coagulate to give a firm, sliceable pudding. Checking for a set centre before removing it prevents a soggy result.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Figbetter flavor fit
  3. Peachabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, butter, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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