Why it works: Biscuit and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 889 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Line a small dish with rich short pastry and decorate the edges with cut leaves of pastry.
Make the batter
Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
Add the crushed biscuits alternately with the beaten eggs.
Grate the lemon rind and add it to the lemon juice, then mix into the batter.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into the prepared dish and bake for 40 minutes or until set.
Sprinkle with castor sugar and serve hot or cold.
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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Biscuit + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together889 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together697 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help it set into a firm, sliceable custard when baked.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a tender texture when beaten with the sugar.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps create a creamy, light batter when beaten with butter.
- Savoy biscuits
- Crushed biscuits add body and a light crumb to the batter.
- Lemons
- Juice and rind supply the sharp, aromatic lemon flavour that defines the pudding.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Pulling the pudding too early leaves the egg-based batter runny in the centre. Baking until just set lets the eggs coagulate into a firm, sliceable texture without overcooking and turning rubbery.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, biscuit, butter, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Blueberryfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, biscuit, butter, flour. 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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