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Mountain Dew Pudding

A baked pudding made from milk crackers, eggs, milk, coffee sugar, lemon juice, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Mountain Dew 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.

Make the pudding base

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

  2. Mix the rolled milk crackers, egg yolks, milk, and salt in a bowl.

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

  4. Let it cool completely.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold in the coffee sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture over the cooled pudding.

  4. Brown slightly under the broiler for a few minutes.

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. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk crackers
Thicken the milk and egg custard and give the pudding body.
Egg yolks
Set the custard and add richness and structure to the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the crackers and eggs set into a custard.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff meringue that forms the light, brownable topping.
Coffee sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it stay stable and glossy when browned.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that stabilizes the whipped egg whites and brightens the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Under-beaten whites collapse and weep, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy. Stiff, glossy peaks hold the topping up during folding, spreading, and broiling.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, coffee, sugar. 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.

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