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Dessert

Delicate Pudding

A light lemon pudding made with egg whites, corn starch, and a custard topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Delicate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding base

  1. In a pot, mix water, sugar, and salt; bring to a boil.

  2. Wet corn starch in a little cold water, then stir into the boiling syrup and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Beat egg whites to a dry froth, then whip the boiling mixture into them.

  4. Return to heat for 1 minute to set the eggs, adding lemon juice and a little grated rind.

Mold and serve

  1. Pour into a mold that has been wet with cold water and refrigerate until ice‑cold.

  2. Serve with custard made from the yolks of 3 eggs.

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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

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

Corn starch
Thickens the boiling syrup so the pudding holds its shape when chilled.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they give the pudding its light, airy, set texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweetness and gives the pudding its lemon flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps balance the tartness of the lemon.

The step that matters

Whipping the boiling mixture into the egg whites. The syrup must be hot enough to partly cook the egg whites, setting the foam; if it is too cool or added carelessly, the whites deflate and the pudding loses its airy texture.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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