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Dessert

Meringue Pudding

A baked pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, sugar, egg yolks, butter, lemon rind, topped with currant jelly and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Meringue 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 pudding

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, milk, sugar, egg yolks, butter, and lemon rind until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.

Top and finish

  1. Spread currant jelly or jam on top of the baked pudding.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add the sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Spread the meringue over the jelly or jam and return to the oven for a few minutes until lightly browned.

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

Bread crumbs
Provide the body that holds the custard together as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and enrich it as it sets in the oven.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the light, browned meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and stabilises the whipped egg whites in the meringue.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the baked pudding.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Egg whites under-whipped or greasy will not hold a stiff foam, so the meringue can weep or stay flat. Adding sugar gradually helps the foam stay glossy and stable.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, egg, butter, lemon. 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 meringue pudding recipes

Lemon 32Apple 22Cream 9Chocolate 8Rice 5Cornstarch 4 See all 31 →

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