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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A layered bread pudding with almond macaroons, sponge cake, and lemon, served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,655 recipes mention both. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Queen of Puddings

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

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk.

  2. Rub the melted butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks, soaked bread crumbs, lemon juice, and rind; beat to a smooth paste.

  4. Butter a mold well and layer the bottom with dry bread crumbs.

Layer and steam

  1. Add a layer of macaroons, wet with sherry, then cover with the mixture.

  2. Add slices of sponge cake spread with jelly, followed by more macaroons, wet with sherry, and more mixture.

  3. Repeat layers until the mold is full, finishing with the mixture on top.

  4. Cover and steam in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

Brown and serve

  1. Remove the cover to brown the top.

  2. Carefully turn out onto a dish and pour over warmed currant jelly mixed with melted butter and sherry.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
The yolks enrich and bind the custard, helping it set into a smooth, tender layer.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and egg, giving the pudding body and a soft, moist structure.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs and sets with the eggs to form a custard texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the top brown when uncovered.
Sponge cake
Adds soft, absorbent layers that soak up the custard and sherry.
Almond macaroons
Add chewy texture and almond flavour in layers soaked with sherry.

The step that matters

Steam under cover before browning. Gentle covered steaming sets the egg custard evenly without curdling or drying it. Only uncover once the custard is firm, so the top browns while the centre stays moist.

Flavor stand-ins for the almond

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

  1. Peasabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Cocoaabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, lemon, egg, sherry, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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