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 ↓
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 base
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix the milk, grated lemon rind, sugar, and butter until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set and golden.
Make the meringue
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gradually add the powdered sugar and lemon juice, mixing until smooth.
Assemble and serve
Spread a layer of jelly over the baked pudding.
Top with the meringue mixture and return to the oven to brown.
Serve warm with or without cold 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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that sets into the custard-like pudding during baking.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into foam to form the light, stable meringue topping that browns in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture in the pudding.
- Powdered sugar
- Dissolves easily into the whipped whites to sweeten and stabilise the meringue.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps stabilise the meringue.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be whipped until stiff and then sugar added gradually so the foam stays stable and holds its shape. Underwhipped or overmixed whites can collapse and make the meringue weep or brown unevenly.
Flavor stand-ins for the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, butter, egg, cream):
- Vanillabetter flavor fit
- Strawberrybetter flavor fit
- Coconutbetter flavor fit
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, egg, cream. 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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