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Dessert

Lemon Pudding

A baked lemon custard made with butter, sugar, lemon, eggs, flour, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Add the sugar, lemon rind, lemon juice, Oswego, and eggs.

  3. Mix for 20 minutes.

Make the crust

  1. Rub 6 ounces of butter into 6 ounces of flour to make a paste.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar, the egg yolk, and ½ cup of cold water.

  3. Knead into a paste.

  4. Roll out to ⅙ inch thick.

  5. Line a pie dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour in the pudding mixture.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 35-40 minutes.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Bind the mixture and set it into a custard-like structure when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to both the filling and the pastry.
Flour
Forms the pastry paste that holds the crust together.
Oswego (or cornstarch)
Thickens the filling so it sets rather than running when baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour that cuts the richness.

The step that matters

Mix for 20 minutes. Long beating incorporates air and fully blends the butter, sugar and eggs, which affects the texture of the baked filling. Under-mixing can leave a dense or uneven pudding, while the thickener must be evenly dispersed to set properly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

More lemon pudding recipes

Baked 36Boiled 25Cold 13Sauce 9Steamed 8Cornstarch 6 See all 470 →

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