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Dessert

Lemon Pudding to Boil

A boiled lemon pudding made with bread crumbs, sugar, lemon rind, lemon juice, egg, suet, salt, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pudding to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine the grated bread crumbs, moist sugar, grated lemon rind, lemon juice, egg, chopped suet, salt, and brandy. Mix well until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a suitable pot or pudding basin.

  3. Boil for 1.5 hours, ensuring the pot is covered.

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

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

  2. Bread + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, giving a moist, tender texture as it melts during cooking.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set as it cooks.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture while contributing to the pudding's flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil for 1.5 hours with the pot covered. Covering the pot keeps steam trapped around the pudding so it cooks gently and stays moist. Keeping the water boiling and topped up holds the steady heat the pudding needs to set through.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, brandy. 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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