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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard dessert made with sliced oranges, sugar, milk, cornstarch, and eggs, topped with beaten egg whites and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Prepare the oranges

  1. Slice the oranges and remove the seeds.

  2. Sprinkle ½ cup sugar over the sliced oranges.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine 2½ cups milk, 2 teaspoons cornstarch, and the yolks of the eggs with the remaining sugar to make a custard.

  2. Pour the custard over the oranges.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the pudding and brown slightly in the oven.

  3. 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. Sugar + milktop 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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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 main fruit flavor and a fresh, slightly acidic base for the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard sets smoothly rather than staying runny.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, while whites whip into a stiff meringue topping that browns lightly.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the beaten egg whites hold their stiff peaks.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites need to be beaten until stiff and free of any fat or yolk, since fat stops them trapping air. Well-whipped whites hold their shape and brown lightly on top instead of collapsing or weeping.

Swap the orange

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

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

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