Skip to main content
Dessert

Lemon Pudding

A baked lemon custard made with eggs, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and topped with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and butter 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.

Make the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the sugar.

  3. Dissolve the cornstarch in cold water and thin it with boiling water.

  4. Add the lemon juice and grated peel to the mixture.

  5. Mix everything together with the butter.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 15 minutes.

  2. Beat the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff.

  3. Spread the beaten egg whites over the top and let it brown slightly in the oven.

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

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling and enrich it, while whites whip into a stiff topping that sets and browns.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard as it heats with the liquid.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour that balances the sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Thinning the cornstarch with boiling water. Cornstarch must be dissolved fully in cold water before boiling water is added, so it does not clump. Thickening happens when starch granules swell with heat, so the mixture needs to be heated enough for the filling to set properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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.

More lemon pudding recipes

Baked 36Boiled 25Cold 13Sauce 9Steamed 8Cornstarch 6 See all 470 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes