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 ↓
Queen of Puddings
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, milk, sugar, egg yolks, butter, and grated lemon.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.
Top and brown
Once baked, cover with a layer of jelly.
In another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff, then gradually add sugar and lemon juice.
Spread the frosting over the jelly and lightly brown in the oven.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,149 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned 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
- Form the body of the pudding and soak up the milk and eggs.
- Milk
- Provides liquid that moistens the crumbs and sets with the eggs into a custard.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard and help it set when baked.
- Egg whites
- Whipped until stiff to make a light meringue topping that browns in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue become stable and glossy.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks before sugar is added. Under-whipped whites will weep and fail to hold the topping, while adding sugar gradually keeps the foam stable.
Flavor stand-ins for the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, sugar, egg, butter, lemon):
- Almondabout as good a flavor fit
- Peasabout as good a flavor fit
- Pecansabout as good a flavor fit
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, egg, 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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