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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Soak the lemon juice and peel together, rubbing the peel with lumps of sugar.
In a bowl, combine the pounded sugar, grated bread crumbs, and melted butter.
Beat the eggs and add them to the mixture, excluding 2 egg whites.
Line a dish with puff pastry.
Bake
Pour the lemon mixture into the lined dish.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 45 minutes.
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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Lemon + teatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together610 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Tea + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together383 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Beaten eggs bind the filling and help it set as it bakes.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a soft, tender crumb.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
The step that matters
Beat the eggs before adding them. Thoroughly beaten eggs blend evenly into the sugar, crumbs and butter, so the filling sets smoothly rather than in streaks.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, tea, bread, egg, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, tea, bread, egg, 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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