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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A sweet bread pudding made with soaked crumbs, milk, eggs, lemon, and topped with jelly and lemon frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk until soft.

  2. Beat the egg yolks, sugar, and salt together.

  3. Add the mixture to the soaked bread and milk along with the butter and lemon rind. Mix thoroughly and bake for about 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooked, spread with jelly.

  2. For frosting, mix the egg whites, lemon juice, and sugar, then whip until light.

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
Soak up milk to form the soft body of the pudding.
Milk
Moistens the bread and sets with the eggs to create a tender custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the frosting whip into a stable foam.
Egg whites
Whipped into a light foam that forms the frosting.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet frosting and custard.

The step that matters

Whipping the frosting. Egg whites whip best when free of any yolk or grease, and they can deflate if overwhipped or left to sit. Whipping them lightly until just foamy keeps the frosting airy.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  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, sugar, butter. 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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