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Dessert

Preserves Pudding

A baked pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, sugar, egg yolks, lemon rind, topped with jam or jelly and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Preserves Pudding

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 ↓

Preserves Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg yolks and 8 tablespoons of sugar together.

  3. Stir in the bread crumbs and boiling milk along with the lemon rind.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add 2 tablespoons of white sugar.

  2. Spread jam or jelly over the pudding, then top with the beaten egg whites.

  3. Bake until the top is light brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

Bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding and soak up the hot milk to set a soft base.
Milk
Provides liquid that softens the crumbs and sets with the eggs into a custard.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard so the pudding holds its shape.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they form a light meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Jam or jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity flavor between the custard and the meringue.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks; under-beaten whites will deflate and make a flat, weepy topping. Adding sugar gradually helps them stay stable.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, 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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