Skip to main content
Dessert

Maid of Honour Pudding

A sweet potato pudding baked in puff pastry with butter, sugar, eggs, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Maid of Honour 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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the potatoes until very soft.

  2. Mix in the butter until well combined.

  3. Stir in the powdered sugar.

  4. Beat the eggs well and add them to the mixture.

  5. Add the juice of the lemon and the finely grated lemon rind.

  6. Stir the mixture until perfectly smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish lined with puff pastry.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Potatoes
Cooked and mashed, they give the filling its soft, body-rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, making the filling tender and smooth.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the filling into a firm, custard-like texture.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the smooth filling.
Lemon
Juice and rind add acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture until perfectly smooth. Lumps of potato or unincorporated egg will not disappear during baking, leaving a grainy texture. Thorough mixing before baking gives an even, smooth set.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesDeep-Fried Potato BallsDeep-Fried Potato Balls119 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes