Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange and Macaroon Pudding

A steamed pudding made with soaked almond macaroons, milk, eggs, sugar, orange rind and juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Orange and Macaroon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Soak the almond macaroons in milk until soft.

  2. Beat the eggs and mix in the sugar and grated orange rind.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the soaked macaroons.

  4. Add the juice of the two oranges and mix well.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and steam for one hour.

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. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Almond macaroons
Soften in the milk to form the pudding's body and add almond flavour.
Milk
Softens the macaroons and provides the liquid that gives the pudding its moisture.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the pudding its structure and a tender, custard-like texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the orange juice.
Oranges
Juice and rind add bright citrus acidity and aroma.

The step that matters

Steam gently. Eggs set through gentle heat. If the water boils hard, the pudding can turn spongy, full of holes, or watery where the egg proteins have tightened too fast.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, milk, egg, sugar, butter. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes