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Dessert

Lemon Pudding, Boiled

A steamed lemon pudding made with bread crumbs, flour, suet, sugar, egg, lemon juice and rind, served with sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Pudding, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the bread crumbs, flour, suet, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind.

  3. Gradually add milk until the mixture is stiff but thoroughly moistened.

Steam and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a greased basin.

  2. Steam for about 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Serve with sweet sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and absorb moisture to give it body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when cooked.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture and gives it structure.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma from the juice and grated rind.

The step that matters

Gradually add milk until thoroughly moistened. Adding milk slowly lets the crumbs absorb it evenly, so the mixture is stiff but not soggy and holds its shape while steaming.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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