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Dessert

Lemon Bread Pudding

A baked pudding made with bread crumbs, sugar, lemon, butter, eggs, and lemon juice.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mix bread crumbs, powdered sugar, and grated lemon peel in a bowl.

  2. Melt the butter, then simmer the melted butter with the mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Stir in the lemon juice, egg yolks, and beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Line the edge of a dish with puff pastry.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  4. Serve with cream and sifted sugar on top.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 butter and egg for a soft, set texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and keeping the pudding tender.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a smooth, tender texture when baked.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the pudding rise and hold its structure as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and dissolves easily into the mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. If the buttery mixture is still hot, it can scramble the egg yolks and whites when stirred in, leading to a grainy texture instead of a smooth, set pudding.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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.

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