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Dessert

Jelly Pudding

A baked bread crumb pudding topped with jelly and a sweet lemon meringue, served with rich sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Jelly 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.

Make the pudding

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

  2. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, milk, sugar, beaten egg yolks, grated lemon rind, butter, salt, and baking soda.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until well done.

Top and bake

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add powdered sugar and lemon juice.

  2. Spread a layer of jelly over the baked pudding, then top with the egg white mixture.

  3. Return to the oven and bake until lightly browned.

  4. Serve with a rich sauce.

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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that the milk and eggs set into a soft pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a tender, smooth texture.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the light topping and browns in the oven.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that softens the crumbs and forms the custard base.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the topping brown lightly.
Jelly
Adds a fruity sweet layer between the baked pudding and the meringue-style topping.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to firm peaks before the powdered sugar and lemon juice are added, because the foam traps air and holds its shape in the oven. Under-whipped whites will weep and flatten.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, egg, butter, sauce. 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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