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Dessert

Boiled Lemon Pudding

A steamed pudding made with breadcrumbs, suet, lemon rind, lemon juice, egg, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Lemon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine breadcrumbs, chopped suet, baking powder, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  2. Mix in the egg and enough milk to form a batter.

Steam

  1. Grease a pudding mold and pour in the mixture.

  2. Steam for 2 hours.

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

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

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Breadcrumbs
Provide the bulk of the pudding and absorb moisture to form a soft, cake-like body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds structure as it sets.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the suet.
Lemon rind
Contributes aromatic oils that give the pudding its lemon fragrance.

The step that matters

Steam for 2 hours. Steaming must be gentle and steady so the pudding cooks through and sets evenly; if the water boils dry or the mold is sealed poorly, the pudding can turn soggy or uneven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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