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Dessert

Orange or Lemon Pudding

A citrus pudding made with corn starch, egg yolks, orange and lemon juice, sugar, and topped with a meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange or Lemon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Wet the corn starch with a little cold water until smooth.

  2. Pour the corn starch mixture into boiling water and stir until clear and thick.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks, citrus juice, and sugar, and mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a dish or mold and let it set until stiff.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with sugar and lemon juice until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pudding.

  3. Place the pudding in the oven with the door open until set, without browning.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Corn + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

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

  3. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Corn starch
Thickens the citrus custard as it heats, giving it a smooth, sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard, adding richness and a soft, creamy set.
Orange and lemon juice
Provides the main citrus flavour and tartness that balances the sugar.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that forms the light, sweet topping.

The step that matters

Stirring the starch into boiling water. Corn starch must be fully heated to swell and thicken; stirring it smooth first prevents lumps, and it only turns clear and thick once the starch has gelatinised.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Blueberryfits less well

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