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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard dessert made with sliced oranges, milk, flour, eggs, and topped with beaten egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the oranges

  1. Peel and slice the oranges very thin, then place them in a pudding dish.

  2. Sprinkle enough sugar over the oranges to sweeten them nicely and let them stand for a while.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk, flour, and egg yolks to make a boiled custard.

  2. Cook the custard until thick, then let it cool before pouring it over the oranges.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix in powdered sugar to taste.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture over the top and brown in a 350°F (175°C) 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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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
Egg yolks thicken the milk into custard, while whipped whites form the light topping.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the custard becomes firm enough to pour over the oranges.
Oranges
Provide the fruit base and bright acidity that contrasts with the sweet custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it body and richness.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thick. Flour and egg yolks thicken as the milk heats, but overcooking can cause the eggs to curdle or scramble. Cooking gently while stirring gives a smooth custard that sets properly when cooled.

Swap the orange

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

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

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