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 ↓
To Make an Orange Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Put two oranges and two lemons into five quarts of water and boil until the rinds are quite tender.
Remove the rinds and, when cold, slice them thin and pick out the seeds.
Make the syrup and stew the fruit
Put a pound of loaf sugar into a pint of water and bring to a boil.
Slice twelve pippins (peeled and cored) and add them to the boiling sugar water.
Lay the lemons and oranges in the pot and stew until tender.
Assemble and bake
Cover the dish with puff pastry, laying the fruit carefully in alternating layers.
Pour the syrup over the pastry and place some slips of pastry across the top.
Bake the assembled dish.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
What these numbers assume: 2 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Orange | 1 medium (131g) | 62 |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
-
Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Loaf sugar
- Provides sweetness and body to the syrup that the fruit cooks in.
- Pippins
- Hold their shape when stewed and add tartness that balances the sugar.
- Oranges
- Contribute fragrant peel oils and a bittersweet flavour from the rinds and juice.
- Lemons (in the method)
- Add acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet syrup.
- Puff pastry (in the method)
- Forms a flaky, crisp top and enclosure that browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Boil the rinds until quite tender. Citrus rind is tough and bitter when undercooked. Boiling it fully softens the pectin and cellulose, so the thinly sliced rinds become tender rather than chewy.
“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
You might also like
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Orange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes
Orange Gelatin100 recipes
Orange Sherbet73 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.