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Dessert

Dumplings and Puddings

A custard pudding made with orange peel, eggs, milk, and sugar, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,746 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Dumplings and Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the orange

  1. Stew orange peel in 2 cups of water for about 15 minutes.

  2. Place the orange peel in a pudding dish.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together.

  2. Add the flour and grated nutmeg, mixing well.

  3. Gradually stir in the cream or milk.

  4. Pour the custard over the orange peel.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until set.

  2. Serve cold with sweetened 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and give it structure as they cook.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and moisture, giving the custard a soft, tender texture.
Flour
Thickens the custard slightly so it holds its shape when set.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the bitterness of the orange peel.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Egg custard sets as its proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking makes it curdle and turn grainy and watery, so check for a just-set centre.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar, flour, nutmeg. 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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