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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard pudding made with oranges, milk, eggs, sugar, and corn starch, topped with frothy egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel and cut the oranges into bits, discarding the seeds.

  2. Sprinkle the sugar over the oranges.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk, then add the beaten egg yolks and corn starch.

  2. Stir until the mixture thickens, then pour it over the fruit.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites with the white sugar until frothy, then frost the pudding.

  2. Brown the pudding under a broiler.

  3. Serve cold or hot.

  4. You can substitute strawberries or peaches if desired.

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Orange + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk 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
Egg yolks thicken the milk into a custard, and beaten whites form the frothy topping.
Corn starch
Starch thickens the hot milk mixture so it sets into a smooth custard.
Oranges
Provide the main fruit flavor and acidity that cuts the sweetness of the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it body and creaminess.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and the meringue topping.

The step that matters

Stir the milk mixture until it thickens. Egg yolks and corn starch thicken only when heated enough, but overheating can curdle the eggs. Stir steadily and remove from heat once the custard coats a spoon.

Swap the orange

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

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

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