Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓
Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pudding
Butter a pudding basin.
Layer light bread in the basin, spread a little finely shredded beef suet and grated lemon peel over the bread, and repeat the layering process until the basin is lightly filled.
Make a custard by whisking together 2 eggs and ½ pint of milk, then pour the custard over the bread gradually.
Cover the pudding with a paper cap.
Cook and make the sauce
Boil the pudding gently for 1 hour.
For the sauce, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with cold water, then stir it into ½ pint of boiling water until thickened.
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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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Beef + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,759 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set the custard so it binds the bread and holds the pudding together.
- Light bread
- Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard as it cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid custard that moistens the bread and sets when heated.
- Beef suet
- Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a moist, tender texture.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce so it becomes smooth and coats the pudding.
The step that matters
Pouring the custard gradually. Pouring slowly lets the bread absorb the custard evenly. Pouring all at once can leave dry bread at the top and pooled liquid at the bottom, so the pudding sets unevenly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, beef, egg, milk, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, beef, egg, milk, flour. 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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