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Dessert

Queen Pudding

A baked lemon and breadcrumb pudding topped with jam and stiffened egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Queen Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and pour it over the sugar, breadcrumbs, butter, lemon rind, and salt.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

Top and finish

  1. Spread a thin layer of jam on top.

  2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Add 2 teaspoons of sugar to the whites and pile them on top of the jam.

  4. Return to a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until firm.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Breadcrumbs
Soak up the hot milk and set the custard with a light, soft body.
Eggs
Set the custard when baked and whites stiffen to form the meringue topping.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the breadcrumbs absorb and the eggs set into custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the egg whites stay stable and glossy in the meringue.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the custard.
Jam
Adds a fruity, sweet layer between the custard and the meringue.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks without being overbeaten, or the meringue will be grainy or weep. Adding sugar gradually helps stabilise the foam, and the cool second bake sets the meringue without browning it too much.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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