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Dessert

The Queen of Puddings

A custard-like bread pudding with lemon, currant jelly topping and whipped egg whites.

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 27,232 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The Queen of Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pudding base

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Combine bread crumbs, milk, ½ cup sugar, egg yolks, butter, and lemon rind in a bowl.

  3. Bake until firm but not watery.

Top and finish

  1. Beat egg whites until stiff, adding 4 tablespoons sugar and lemon juice.

  2. Spread currant jelly over the top of the pudding, then add the beaten egg whites.

  3. Return to the oven until the topping is firm.

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

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,149 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Bread crumbs
Provide the body of the pudding, soaking up milk to form a soft, set custard base.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the custard as they set with gentle heat.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light meringue topping that browns and sets in the oven.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that moistens the crumbs and forms the custard with the yolks.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, in the meringue, stabilises the whipped whites and helps them brown.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites that are under-whipped will weep or collapse on top of the pudding, while over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy. Stiff, glossy peaks hold the meringue topping in place when baked.

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Figbetter flavor fit
  3. Coconutbetter flavor fit
  4. Currantthe original

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