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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with milk, bread crumbs, eggs, and orange.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine milk, bread crumbs, egg yolks, orange juice, grated orange rind, and sugar. Mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding pan.

Top and bake

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gradually add a little sugar and flavoring, if using.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites over the pudding mixture.

  3. Place the pudding pan in a larger pan filled with water and bake until set and lightly browned.

Serve

  1. Let cool and serve chilled.

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 + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + orangetop 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. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, beaten stiff, form a light topping.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the pudding a soft, body-filled texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a custard when baked.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and bright orange flavor to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Gentle, indirect heat from the water bath keeps the egg custard from overheating, curdling or becoming rubbery, so it sets smoothly while the topping browns.

Swap the orange

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

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

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