Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Pudding

A pudding of sliced oranges and a custard made with boiled milk, sugar, eggs and cornstarch, topped with a browned frosting of beaten whites and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Johnson, Vt. Congregational church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle sugar on oranges.

  2. Beat yolks and flour together, adding enough milk to make a smooth batter.

  3. Add milk, cornstarch dissolved in water, and yolks of eggs.

  4. Add the boiling milk, then the whites last.

Finish and bake

  1. Make frosting of whites and 1 cupful sugar.

  2. Place in oven to brown.

  3. Bake 10 minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

793Calories
28 gProtein
15 gFat
135 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Johnson, Vt. Congregational church. [from old catalog]. 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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Orange + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

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

  3. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Yolks thicken the custard and the whites make the frosting that browns on top.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it stays smooth when the boiling milk is added.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard so it sets smoothly rather than staying runny.
Milk
Forms the custard base that the thickeners set into a creamy filling.
Oranges
Provide the fruit flavour and acidity that cut the sweetness of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and the frosting and helps the frosting brown.

The step that matters

Add the boiling milk, then the whites last. Hot milk must be blended in gradually so the yolks do not scramble, and whites folded in at the end keep the pudding light.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour, corn. 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.

More orange pudding recipes

Lemon 10Baked 5Steamed 5Banana 4 See all 349 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipes