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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with oranges, sweet milk, eggs, sugar, and cornstarch, topped with beaten egg whites and browned.

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

Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil 1 pint of sweet milk.

  2. While boiling, add 3 egg yolks, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, and 1 cup sugar mixed with a little cold milk.

  3. Stir constantly until thick, then pour over the cut oranges.

Top and brown

  1. Beat 3 egg whites until very stiff, then fold in 2 tablespoons sugar.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture over the pudding and place in the oven to brown.

Serve

  1. 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. Orange + milktop 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. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk custard and add richness as they set with the cornstarch.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk and egg mixture so the custard sets firm and smooth.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms a light topping which browns in the oven.
Sweet milk
Forms the custard base that is thickened with the yolks and cornstarch.
Oranges
Provide the main fruit flavour and acidity that cuts the sweetness of the custard.

The step that matters

Stir the custard constantly until thick. Egg yolks and cornstarch can scorch or form lumps if left unstirred on heat. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so the starch swells and thickens into a smooth custard instead of curdling.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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