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Dessert

Lentil Flour Pudding

A baked pudding made from lentil flour, milk, sugar, lemon, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Lentil Flour 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

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Smooth the lentil flour with a little water.

Make the custard

  1. Pour the boiling milk gradually over the lentil flour, mixing well.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, lemon rind, and juice.

  3. When the mixture has cooled slightly, add the beaten eggs.

Bake

  1. Bake in a well-greased dish at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Lentil flour
Forms the body of the pudding and thickens as it heats with the milk.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and keeps the pudding moist.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavour and a softer, more tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the lemon.
Lemon
Its rind and juice add aroma and a bright acidity.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs after the mixture cools slightly. Egg proteins begin to coagulate at high heat, so adding them to a very hot mixture can curdle or scramble them. Letting it cool slightly keeps the pudding smooth and evenly set when baked.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, 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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