Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓
Orange Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the oranges into small pieces and layer them at the bottom of a pudding dish.
Prepare a thick boiled custard using milk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract.
Allow the custard to cool, then pour it over the oranges.
Whip the egg whites until stiff and spread them on top of the pudding.
Brown the top slightly in the oven, ensuring to remove all seeds from the oranges.
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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Orange + vanillatop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,371 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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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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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg, vanilla):
- Figfits better
- Peachfits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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