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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A custard-like pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, sugar, lemon, eggs, butter, currant jelly, and egg whites.

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Combine bread crumbs, milk, sugar, lemon rind, egg yolks, and butter in a large bowl.

  3. Mix well and pour into a baking dish, ensuring it does not become watery.

Layer and bake

  1. Spread currant jelly over the mixture.

  2. Beat egg whites until stiff, then mix in 5 tablespoons sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture on top and bake until browned.

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
Forms the body of the custard base and soaks up the milk.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a soft, tender texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that bakes into a light, browned meringue topping.
Milk
Provides moisture and liquid that the bread crumbs absorb and the eggs set.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and stabilizes the whipped egg white meringue.
Currant jelly
Adds a fruity sweet-tart layer between the custard and the meringue.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to firm peaks so they trap air and hold their shape. Under-whipped whites collapse and weep, while over-whipped whites turn grainy and dry, so the meringue bakes unevenly.

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Figbetter flavor fit
  3. Peachbetter flavor fit
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, lemon, 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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