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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with stale bread, orange zest, orange juice, eggs, and sugar, baked in cups and served with a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Orange Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pudding

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk and beat to a pulp.

  2. Mix in the grated orange rind, orange juice, and beaten egg yolks with sugar.

  3. Butter the cups and place them in a pan of hot water.

  4. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and gently fold them into the mixture.

  5. Partly fill the cups and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, beat the butter until creamy, then gradually add powdered sugar.

  2. Add the egg yolks and beat until light, then mix in the wine and milk gradually.

  3. Place the bowl in boiling water and stir for 3 minutes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding and soak up the milk and juice.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they lighten the pudding so it rises and sets airy.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set smoothly when baked.
Orange juice
Adds moisture and bright citrus acidity and flavour.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and gives it a creamy, smooth body.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly whipped egg whites trap air that gives the pudding its lift. Stirring them vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a dense, flat result.

Swap the orange

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

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

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