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 the pudding
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix the bread crumbs, milk, sugar, egg yolks, lemon rind, and butter until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.
Top and finish
In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites to stiff peaks, gradually adding the powdered sugar.
Remove the pudding from the oven and spread the top with jelly.
Spoon the whipped egg whites over the jelly and return to the oven.
Bake until the top is light brown.
Let cool before serving.
Serve with cream.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Lemon + raspberrytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,109 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Milk + raspberrytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,014 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread crumbs
- Form the soft body of the pudding by soaking up the milk and eggs.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard and help it set firmly as it bakes.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light meringue topping that browns in the oven.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid that moistens the crumbs and forms the custard base.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue hold its structure.
- Jelly
- Adds a fruity sweet-tart layer between the custard and the meringue.
The step that matters
Whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks and sugar is added gradually so the foam stays stable. Under-whipped or deflated whites will weep or sink and give a flat, dense topping.
Flavor stand-ins for the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, sugar, egg, butter, raspberry):
- Vanillabetter flavor fit
- Peachbetter flavor fit
- Figbetter flavor fit
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, egg, butter, raspberry. 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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