Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Pudding

A baked custard pudding with orange pieces and a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the layers

  1. Cut the oranges into small pieces and layer them in the bottom of a pudding dish.

  2. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of 2 eggs with ½ cup sugar and ⅓ cup corn starch.

  2. Add the egg mixture to the scalded milk and stir until thickened.

  3. Pour the custard over the oranges.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and spread them over the top.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the meringue is lightly browned.

  3. Let cool completely before serving.

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. 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 fruit base and bright, sweet-tart flavor under the custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and body.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard sets smoothly.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff meringue that browns and forms the topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding creaminess.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard until thickened. Starch thickens only when the mixture is heated enough while stirred; stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom. Stop once it thickens to avoid a pasty texture.

Swap the orange

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

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

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

More orange pudding recipes

Lemon 10Baked 5Steamed 5Banana 4 See all 349 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipes