Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. 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 the filling
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine the butter, grated lemon peel, lemon juice, egg yolks, and 1½ cups of sugar. Beat until well mixed.
Line a deep pudding dish with puff pastry.
Bake and top
Pour the lemon mixture into the lined dish and bake until set.
While baking, beat the 5 egg whites to stiff peaks.
Gradually add sugar to the egg whites to taste, creating a meringue.
Once the pudding is baked, cover it with the meringue and return to the oven for a few minutes to brown.
Serve
Serve cold; no sauce is needed.
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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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the lemon filling as they set, giving it a custard-like body.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture in the filling.
- Lemon juice
- Provides the sharp acidity that defines the pudding's flavour and balances the sugar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and, in the meringue, stabilises the whipped egg white foam.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a meringue that gives a light, airy topping that browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks before sugar is added gradually. Any trace of yolk or fat can stop them whipping properly, and sugar added too fast can leave the meringue loose or weepy.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonthe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Figfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against 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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