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
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Slice the oranges. Place the sliced oranges in a pudding dish. Sprinkle sugar over the oranges.
Make the custard
Heat the milk in a saucepan. Dissolve the corn starch in the milk.
Add the egg yolks, sugar, and salt to the mixture. Pour the mixture into the boiling milk.
Stir the mixture until it thickens.
Pour the cooked mixture over the sliced oranges in the dish.
Top and bake
Beat the egg whites until stiff. Add sugar to the beaten egg whites.
Spread the egg white mixture over the top.
Bake in the oven until the top is browned.
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.
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Orange + corntop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together586 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Orange + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,696 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 whip into the stiff topping that browns in the oven.
- Corn starch
- Gelatinizes when heated in the milk, thickening the custard so it holds its shape.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets as the starch and egg cook.
- Oranges
- Provide the fruit layer and bright acidity beneath the custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the oranges, custard and meringue topping, and helps the whites stay stiff.
The step that matters
Stirring the custard until it thickens. Corn starch must be heated while stirred so its granules swell and thicken the milk evenly; if it is not hot enough or stirred enough, the custard stays thin or turns lumpy.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, corn, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, corn, 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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