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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard pudding made with oranges, banana, sugar, egg, milk, and corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,118 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Combine the chopped oranges and banana in a bowl with ¼ cup sugar and let it stand.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate bowl, cream the egg and ½ cup sugar together.

  2. Add the corn starch to the egg mixture to thicken.

  3. Heat the milk in a saucepan until warm, then gradually stir it into the egg mixture.

  4. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the custard over the fruit mixture.

  2. Serve with whipped cream or plain cream.

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. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  4. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

  5. Banana + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg proteins set as the custard heats, giving it body and structure.
Corn starch
Swells when heated with liquid, thickening the custard into a smooth, spoonable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying the sugar and thickeners.
Oranges
Add juice, acidity and fresh citrus aroma to the pudding.
Banana
Adds soft texture and natural sweetness to the fruit layer.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg proteins can scramble if the mixture gets too hot or is left unstirred, leaving lumps. Gentle, constant stirring lets the starch thicken the custard smoothly while the egg sets evenly.

Swap the orange

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

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

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

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