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Dessert

Boiled Orange Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with macaroons, milk, eggs, sugar, orange rind, and orange juice, boiled for an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,696 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Boiled Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Soak the macaroons in the milk until soft.

  2. Beat the eggs and sugar together until well mixed, then add the milk and beat until smooth.

  3. Add the orange juice and rind.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a pudding mold and fill it half full with the mixture.

  2. Cover closely and place in a pot of boiling water.

  3. Boil without interruption for 1 hour.

  4. Serve with orange or other pudding sauce.

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. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Macaroons
Soak to soften and thicken the custard base with body and texture.
Eggs
Set the pudding into a firm, sliceable structure as they cook.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the macaroons and forms a smooth custard base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the orange.
Orange juice
Adds bright citrus acidity and flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Boil without interruption for 1 hour. The pudding sets gently through steady heat. If the water stops boiling or the mold is left uncovered, steam escapes and the pudding can cook unevenly or turn watery and dense.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, 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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