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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A baked dessert made with butter, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, orange pulp, orange juice, wine or brandy, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until frothy.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs well.

Make the batter

  1. Add the grated lemon, orange pulp, and strained orange juice to the egg mixture.

  2. Mix in the butter and sugar mixture, then add the wine or brandy and nutmeg.

  3. Pour the mixture into baking cups and bake until set.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to add richness and a tender, fine crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps aerate the butter when beaten until frothy.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding its structure.
Orange juice
Adds moisture and bright citrus acidity to the batter.
Orange skins
Contribute bitter citrus aroma and flavour to the pudding.
Wine or brandy
Adds aromatic depth and a warm, boozy flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Bake until set. The eggs set through heat, so underbaking leaves a runny centre while overbaking can make the pudding dry and rubbery. Watch for a firm top and a slight give in the centre.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, lemon, wine, nutmeg. 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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