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Dessert

Corn Starch Lemon Pudding

A lemon pudding thickened with cornstarch, served with a sauce of cornstarch, milk, egg whites, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Corn Starch Lemon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Grate the rind of the lemons and combine with their juice, sugar, and corn starch in a bowl.

  2. Stir in enough cold water to make a smooth mixture.

  3. Heat the milk in a pot until boiling, then add the lemon mixture, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the butter and eggs, mixing well while on the heat until thickened again.

  5. Pour the mixture into small cups or molds that have been dipped in cold water and set aside to cool for one hour.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, blend 1 ounce of corn starch with a little cold milk until smooth, then pour in 1 pint of boiling milk.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with sugar and brandy, then add to the sauce, stirring continuously over heat until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve the pudding with the sauce, hot or cold, and flavor as desired.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the lemon mixture and milk into a smooth, sliceable pudding as it gelatinizes with heat.
Eggs
Set with heat to add body and firmness to the pudding, and enrich its texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the pudding and sauce, giving creaminess once thickened.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the pudding.
Lemons
Supply acidity and aroma from the juice and rind.

The step that matters

Stirring in the eggs over heat. Egg proteins set with heat and can scramble or curdle if the mixture gets too hot or is not stirred well. Mixing steadily while heating keeps the pudding smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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