Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Lemon 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.
Make the pudding base
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, 1 cup sugar, milk, bread crumbs, butter, and grated lemon rind until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Top and bake
In another bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold in the remaining sugar and lemon juice.
Spread the whipped egg whites over the pudding mixture.
Bake for 30 minutes until slightly browned.
Finish and serve
Once done, spread a layer of jelly on top before serving.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whites whipped to foam form the light topping.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that the egg and bread crumb mixture soaks up and sets into a soft custard.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the milk and eggs to give the pudding its body and soft structure.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the whipped egg white topping.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweet custard and tempers its richness.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the pudding richer and more tender.
The step that matters
Whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites trap air to form the light topping; under-whipped whites will weep and sink, while over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy. Folding gently preserves the trapped air.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, bread, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, bread, butter. 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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