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Dessert

Orange Cream Pudding

A baked pudding made with milk, cornstarch, eggs, sugar and orange, topped with a meringue and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Cream Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Moisten 3 tablespoons cornstarch in part of a pint of milk.

  2. Beat the yolks of 2 eggs with a half cup sugar.

  3. Scald the remainder of the milk.

Make the pudding

  1. Add to the scalded milk the grated rind of 1 orange, the cornstarch, eggs and sugar, and the orange juice, in order.

  2. When cooked, pour into a pudding dish.

Top and bake

  1. Cover with a meringue made from the whites of the eggs and sugar (the scanned amount is unreadable).

  2. Brown in oven and serve cold.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

644Calories
20 gProtein
7 gFat
123 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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. See the original page.

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. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + orangetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable custard as it cooks.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the custard, and the whites form the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and stabilises the meringue.
Orange
Its rind adds fragrant aroma and its juice adds bright acidity.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thick. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil and is stirred, so undercooking leaves it thin and runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or lumpy.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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