Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare a pan of hot water.
Grease a basin.
Mix the flour, bread crumbs, suet, and sugar together.
Sprinkle in the baking powder and a pinch of salt.
Grate the thin rind of the lemon. Roll the grated rind to soften.
Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice of the lemon. Discard the seeds.
Make and steam the pudding
Stir in enough milk to make a stiff batter.
Pour the batter into the greased basin.
Cover the basin with greased paper.
Steam the pudding for two hours.
Serve
Turn the pudding out onto a hot dish.
Serve with white sweet sauce.
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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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the pudding as it sets.
- Suet
- Adds richness and a tender, moist crumb as it melts during steaming.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorbs liquid and adds body to the batter for a softer texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during steaming so the pudding rises and lightens.
- Milk
- Hydrates the dry ingredients into a stiff batter that sets when cooked.
- Lemon
- Provides aroma from the rind and acidity from the juice.
The step that matters
Steam the pudding for two hours. Steam must stay steady and the basin must be well covered so the pudding cooks through and stays moist. Letting the water boil dry or the cover leak lets the pudding dry out and become uneven.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, bread, sugar, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, sugar, milk. 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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