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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with sliced oranges, sugar, egg yolks, corn starch, milk, and browned egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk 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 oranges

  1. Peel and slice the oranges thinly, then add the sugar.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the corn starch, then strain into the boiling milk and cook in a double boiler.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the sliced oranges.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff, then add the powdered sugar.

  2. Brown the egg white mixture slightly in the oven.

  3. Serve the pudding very cold.

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. Corn + milktop 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. Egg + milktop 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

Oranges
Provide the main fruit flavour and the sliced base of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the oranges and balances their acidity.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and give it a rich, smooth texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture so it sets into a soft custard.
Milk
Forms the body of the custard and adds richness and mild sweetness.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam that forms the light topping and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard in a double boiler. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated. Gentle, indirect heat lets the starch thicken the milk while the yolks set smoothly.

Swap the orange

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

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

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