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Dessert

Queen Pudding

A custard-like bread pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, butter, eggs, sugar, lemon rind, topped with jam and meringue.

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 ↓

Queen 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 in a saucepan.

  2. Combine the bread crumbs and grated lemon rind in a bowl, then add the butter.

  3. Pour the boiling milk over the mixture.

Make the custard

  1. Let it stand for a few minutes to cool.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks and sugar.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a greased pie dish.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set.

Top and serve

  1. Remove from the oven and spread jam over the top.

  2. Pile the stiffly beaten egg whites on the jam.

  3. Return to the oven for a few minutes to set the meringue.

  4. Sift castor sugar over the top.

  5. Serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks set the custard, and whipped whites form the meringue topping.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the soft, pudding-like body of the dish.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the crumbs and gives the custard its moisture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and the sugar sifted over the meringue.
Grated lemon rind
Adds a fresh citrus aroma to the pudding.

The step that matters

Let the milk cool before beating in the eggs. Eggs thicken through gentle heat. If the mixture is still very hot when the yolks go in, the proteins can scramble and leave a grainy custard instead of a smooth, set one.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, egg, sugar. 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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