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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard pudding made with orange pieces, sugar, milk, corn starch, eggs, and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 the orange filling

  1. Combine orange pieces and sugar; let stand for a while.

  2. Mix corn starch with a little water; stir into nearly boiling milk.

  3. Add beaten egg yolks to milk mixture; cook until thick like custard.

  4. Remove from heat; let cool; mix with orange and sugar.

Assemble and bake

  1. Beat egg whites; gradually add powdered sugar to make frosting.

  2. Fill pastry with orange mixture; top with meringue; brown slightly in oven.

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. 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. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Oranges
Provide the fruit flavour and the bulk of the filling.
White sugar
Sweetens the orange and softens its tartness.
Milk
Forms the custard base that carries the orange pieces.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk so the custard sets to a spoonable texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and colour.
Egg whites
Whip into a meringue that forms the browned topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thick. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture reaches a boil, and egg yolks can curdle if overheated. Cook gently while stirring, then stop as soon as it is thick like custard, so the filling stays smooth.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, corn, 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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