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Dessert

Queens Pudding

A sweet bread pudding made with soaked bread crumbs, milk, egg yolks, sugar, butter, topped with preserves and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Queens 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 base

  1. Pour the warmed milk over the bread crumbs.

  2. Let the mixture soak.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with 1 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of butter.

  4. Combine the soaked bread crumbs with the egg yolk mixture.

  5. Pour the combined mixture into a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Spread a layer of preserves or jelly on top.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar to the egg whites and mix well.

  4. Spread the egg white mixture over the top of the pudding.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Soak up the warm milk to form the body of the pudding.
Milk
Softens the crumbs and supplies moisture for a tender custard-like texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they set, giving the pudding structure and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue topping brown.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff meringue that sets and browns on top.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Under-beaten whites won't hold their shape and may weep or sink into the pudding. Well-whipped whites trap air and bake into a light, stable meringue topping.

“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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