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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 custard base

  1. In a frying kettle, bring the milk to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks lightly, then mix in the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the boiling milk, then stir in the bread crumbs.

  4. Let the mixture boil until it thickens, then pour it into a pudding dish.

Top and bake

  1. Spread a layer of jelly over the top.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and spread them over the jelly.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the top is light brown.

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
Absorb the milk and set into a soft, custard-like body as they cook.
Eggs
Thicken the custard when cooked and help the meringue topping hold its shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens around the bread crumbs and egg yolks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beaten egg whites stay stable as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture boil until it thickens. Egg yolks set when heated, but overheating can make them curdle or scramble. Cooking until the mixture just thickens gives a smooth custard that holds its shape.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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