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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with cream, egg whites, sugar, corn starch, and orange slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Dissolve the corn starch in a little of the cream.

  2. In a double boiler, heat the remaining cream and sugar until boiling.

  3. Add the dissolved corn starch.

  4. Cook until smooth.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg whites. Mix well.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

Prepare the oranges

  1. Slice the oranges finely.

  2. Sprinkle the sliced oranges with sugar.

  3. Let the sliced oranges stand for 30 minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the orange mixture over the pudding base.

  2. Top the pudding with whipped cream.

  3. Add the sliced oranges on top just before serving.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Corn + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

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

Corn starch
Thickens the cream mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard as it cooks.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness to the pudding base once beaten and stirred in.
Cream
Provides richness and body, forming the main creamy base of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and draws juice out of the sliced oranges.
Oranges
Add bright acidity and fresh flavour that cuts through the rich cream.

The step that matters

Cook until smooth. Corn starch must be fully heated in the boiling cream to swell and thicken; undercooking leaves a raw starchy taste and a thin, grainy texture.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar, 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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