Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lemons
Boil the lemons in water until tender.
Remove the seeds and pound the lemons to a paste.
Mix and bake
Mix the lemon paste with sugar, butter, and egg yolks.
Bake in a tin lined with puff pastry.
Finish and serve
Once baked, sprinkle grated sugar on top and serve on a napkin.
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 + 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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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Thicken and set the filling as it heats, giving it a rich, tender body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, soft texture to the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
- Lemons
- Provide the main acidity and bright lemon aroma of the pudding.
The step that matters
Baking the lemon mixture. The egg yolks set as they heat, so the pudding needs enough heat to firm but not so much that it overcooks. Overbaking can make the yolks grainy, curdled, or dry.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, cream, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits about as well
- Raspberryfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream, egg. 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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