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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A custard-like bread pudding topped with jelly and meringue.

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

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.

Make the base

  1. Grate the rind of the lemon and mix it with the sugar, butter, and bread crumbs.

  2. Add a pinch of salt and pour the scalding milk over the mixture.

  3. Let it stand until cool, then add the beaten egg yolks.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set.

Top and finish

  1. Once cool, spread with jelly or jam.

  2. Beat the egg whites with ½ cup sugar and the lemon juice to make a meringue.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pudding.

  4. Brown slowly in the oven.

  5. Serve cold with cream or hot with fruit sauce.

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
Form the body of the pudding and soak up the hot milk to set a soft custard.
Milk
Provides the liquid that, combined with the eggs, sets into a custard.
Eggs
Yolks set the custard when baked; whites whip into the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, whipped with egg whites, stabilises the meringue.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the crumb and adds flavour.
Lemon
Rind adds aroma to the base and juice adds acidity that brightens the meringue.

The step that matters

Brown slowly in the oven. Meringue sugar caramelises and browns at high heat, but cooking too fast can scorch the surface before the inside is dry. Slow browning gives an even golden top without burning.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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