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Dessert

Mountain Dew Pudding

A coconut and cracker pudding baked with milk, eggs, and sugar, topped with a frosted egg white glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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.

Prepare the pudding

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the milk, egg yolks, coconut, rolled crackers, sugar, and lemon juice.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.

Make the frosting and finish

  1. While baking, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add ¼ cup sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the frosting over the pudding and brown it in the oven.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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 + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Coconut + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  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

Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the pudding as they set during baking.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the frosting and browns in the oven.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the eggs and crackers set into a custard.
Rolled crackers
Soak up liquid and add body to the pudding as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the frosting stay glossy and stable.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites under-whipped or over-whipped will not hold the frosting shape or brown evenly. Sugar added gradually stabilises the foam, so it stays glossy and holds its peaks through baking.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

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