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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A custard-like pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, lemon, jelly, and meringue topping.

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 hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the custard

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a pot, combine bread crumbs and milk; cook until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolks, butter, sugar, and lemon flavoring.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.

Top and brown

  1. Spread jelly over the baked mixture.

  2. Beat egg whites with a little sugar and lemon until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture on top and brown slightly in the oven.

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
Thicken the milk into a soft, spoonable base that holds the custard together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a tender custard when heated with the eggs.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a smooth, creamy texture when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the custard.

The step that matters

Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks to make a stable meringue. Under-whipped whites collapse and weep, and the topping will not brown and hold its shape well.

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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