Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Lemon 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.
Make the pudding base
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the crushed soda biscuits, milk, butter, egg yolks, and sugar until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.
Make the lemon dressing
In a saucepan, combine the lemon juice, lemon rind, sugar, and water; bring to a boil.
Stir in the cornstarch and cook until thickened.
Finish and serve
Pour the lemon dressing over the baked pudding before serving.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together697 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Biscuit + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,009 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard base and add richness to the pudding.
- Milk
- Provides liquid that sets with the egg yolks into a soft, custardy texture.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the lemon dressing as it heats, giving it a glossy, spoonable body.
- Lemons
- Supply the acidity and bright aroma of the dressing, from juice and rind.
- Soda biscuits
- Crushed biscuits add bulk and a toasty, grainy base to the pudding.
The step that matters
Stir in the cornstarch and cook until thickened. Cornstarch needs to reach a simmer to swell and thicken fully. Undercooked starch leaves the dressing thin, while overcooking can break it down and make it gluey.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, milk, butter, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, milk, butter, egg, sugar. 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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