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Puddings

A custard-like pudding topped with whipped egg whites and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs well, separating the whites and yolks if desired.

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the beaten yolks.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Pour the pudding mixture into a baking dish and bake until just done.

  2. To make meringue, whip the whites of 3-4 eggs with 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar per egg and a little lemon juice.

  3. Remove from the oven, cover with meringue, and return to the oven for a few more minutes to 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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rose + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together892 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Whites trap air for lightness and yolks add richness and set the custard structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens and helps the butter cream to a light, aerated base.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the meringue, giving it stability and sweetness.
Lemon juice
Acidity stabilizes the whipped egg whites so the meringue holds its volume.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold the air that makes the pudding light. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, rose, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, rose, cinnamon. 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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