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Dessert

Lemon Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with lemon juice, rind, milk, eggs, sugar, and cornstarch.

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 ↓

Lemon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. Stir in the cornstarch mixed with a few spoonfuls of cold water.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Mix in the butter.

  6. Let cool.

Add the lemon and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar until light and creamy.

  2. Add the lemon juice and grated rind, mixing well.

  3. Gradually combine this mixture with the cooled cornstarch and milk, stirring until smooth.

  4. Pour into a buttered dish and bake until set.

  5. Serve cold.

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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 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

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the mixture as they set, giving the pudding a soft, custard-like body.
Cornstarch
Starch thickens the hot milk into a smooth base that holds the pudding together.
Lemons
Juice gives the pudding its tart flavour, and the grated rind adds aroma.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens into a creamy custard.

The step that matters

Boil the cornstarch mixture for 5 minutes while stirring constantly. Starch granules only thicken fully once heated to a boil and held there, and constant stirring prevents scorching and lumps. Undercooked starch leaves the base thin and grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, 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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Baked 36Boiled 25Cold 13Sauce 9Steamed 8Cornstarch 6 See all 470 →

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