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Dessert

Nonpareil Pudding

A baked pudding made with bread crumbs, sweet milk, sugar, lemon rind, eggs, butter, topped with jelly or sweetmeat and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Nonpareil 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

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

  2. Beat the egg yolks until light, then mix in the sweet milk.

  3. Gradually add the bread crumbs and melted butter, followed by the grated lemon rind.

Make the meringue

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.

  2. Stir the lemon juice into the egg whites before adding the sugar.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread a layer of jelly or sweetmeat over the pudding.

  2. Top with the egg white mixture.

  3. Return to the oven to brown.

  4. Serve cold with cream.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the custard, while whipped whites lighten the topping and set in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the pudding a soft, sponge-like body.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that sets with the eggs into a custard.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the topping and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.
Lemon rind
Adds a bright citrus aroma that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten to a firm foam before the sugar goes in. Underbeaten whites stay runny and weep, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy, so the topping may not hold its shape or brown evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, butter, egg, cream. 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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