Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Sweet Puddings
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Rub sugar on the lemon peel and boil it.
Beat the egg yolks well and add them along with the lemon juice.
Mix everything well and heat the sauce without boiling it again.
Serve
Pour some sauce over the pudding and serve the rest in a sauceboat.
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.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon 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
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and sweetens the lemon flavour in the sauce.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it a creamy body.
- Lemon juice
- Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the sauce.
- Lemon peel
- Adds aromatic lemon oils that give the sauce its fragrance.
The step that matters
Heat the sauce without boiling it again. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heating. If the sauce gets too hot or boils, the proteins tighten and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, silky sauce.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Datesfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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