Skip to main content
Dessert

Hanover Pudding

A lemon crumb pudding made with bread crumbs, lemon rind, sugar, butter, egg yolks, and lemon juice, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Hanover Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Grate the crumb of a roll and mince the rind of half a lemon.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the crumb, minced lemon rind, sugar, butter, lemon juice, and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat until it thickens.

Bake

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

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 30 minutes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, custardy body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture in the filling.
Roll crumb
Bulks out the filling and soaks up the liquids to give it body.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it set to a soft, smooth texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until it thickens. Egg yolks set at moderate temperatures and can scramble if the heat is too high. Gentle, constant stirring keeps the filling smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes