Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Lemon 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 base
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, stir together egg yolks, sugar, water, grated lemon rind, and lemon juice.
Soak the crackers or cake in hot water.
Pour the custard over the soaked crackers or cake.
Bake the custard-covered crackers or cake.
Make the rice layer
In another bowl, combine cooked rice, enough milk to make it thin, butter, sugar, raisins, and grated lemon rind.
Bake the rice mixture until set.
Frost and brown
Beat egg whites until stiff.
Mix the beaten egg whites with lemon juice and sugar for frosting.
Spread the frosting over the pudding.
Return the pudding to the oven to brown.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together565 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the lemon custard and add richness and colour to the base.
- Egg whites
- Whipped until stiff to form a light, airy frosting that browns in the oven.
- Cooked rice
- Forms the body of the second layer, giving a soft, starchy texture when set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard, rice mixture and frosting, and helps the meringue-style frosting hold its shape.
- Lemon juice
- Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and flavours the custard and frosting.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the rice mixture.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks so the frosting stays light and airy; under-beaten whites will weep and sink into the pudding while baking.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, lemon, rice, milk, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, lemon, rice, milk, butter. 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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