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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with orange pieces, milk, corn starch, and eggs, finished with whipped 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 oranges

  1. Peel, seed, and cut the oranges into small pieces.

  2. Sweeten to taste.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and sweeten it.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in a little cold milk.

  3. Add it to the boiling milk along with the beaten egg yolks.

  4. Cook until thickened.

  5. Cool and pour over the oranges.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add the sugar.

  3. Spread over the pudding.

  4. Brown slightly in the oven.

  5. Serve 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. 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. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Oranges
Provide the main fruit flavour and fresh acidity that cut through the rich custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets when thickened.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the custard its body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set smooth and creamy when cooked.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the light topping and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thickened. Corn starch thickens only when the milk boils, and egg yolks can curdle if overheated. Cook gently while stirring until it thickens, then stop, so the custard stays smooth.

Swap the orange

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

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

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