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Dessert

Orange Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with stale bread crumbs, orange zest, orange juice, cream, milk, sugar, salt, and egg whites.

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 Bread 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 batter

  1. Combine stale bread crumbs and cream in a bowl until the cream is absorbed.

  2. Beat lightly with a fork, then add the grated orange rind and orange juice.

  3. Sweeten to taste, add salt, and mix in boiling milk.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered cups.

  2. Place the cups in a pan of hot water and bake at 350°F (175°C) until firm.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding and soak up the liquid to set a soft structure.
Cream
Adds richness and a tender, custardy texture.
Egg whites
Folded in whipped, they lighten the mixture and help it rise and set when baked.
Orange juice
Adds bright acidity and citrus flavour that cuts the sweetness.
Boiling milk
Adds moisture and softens the bread crumbs so the pudding sets evenly.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Overmixing deflates the whipped egg whites, losing the air that lightens the pudding. Fold gently so the mixture stays airy and rises during baking.

Swap the orange

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

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

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