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Dessert

Lemon Pudding, Baked

A baked lemon pudding made with sugar, arrowroot, eggs, butter, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lemon Pudding, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the arrowroot smoothly with a little cold water.

  2. Add the egg yolks (not beaten).

  3. Add half the sugar.

  4. Add the strained juice of the lemon.

  5. Add the grated rind.

  6. Add the boiling water.

  7. Boil for five minutes.

  8. Mix the butter well with the other ingredients.

  9. Pour into a buttered dish.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Add the remaining sugar.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture on top of the pudding.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until light brown.

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. Lemon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Arrowroot
Thickens the lemon mixture into a smooth, set custard base.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the custard; whites whipped to a froth form the light topping.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the custard.
White sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the beaten egg white topping stay stable and browned.
Lemon
Provides acidity and aroma from the juice and grated rind.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth. Whites must be whipped until stiff so they trap air and hold their shape on top. Underbeaten whites collapse and bake flat, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, butter, 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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