Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Orange Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the oranges
Peel and slice the oranges, removing the seeds, and sprinkle sugar over them.
Make the custard
Heat the milk in a vessel of boiling water until it is boiling hot.
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix in the flour with a little cold milk until smooth.
Stir the egg yolk mixture into the hot milk continuously until thickened, then pour over the oranges.
Frost and serve
Beat the egg whites until stiff, add the sugar, and spread over the pudding as frosting.
Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes to harden.
Serve cold.
You can substitute with berries or other fruits like peaches.
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Orange + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,696 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard and whites whip into a frosting that sets in the oven.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens when heated with the yolks.
- Flour
- Starch thickens the custard and helps keep it smooth and stable.
- Oranges
- Provide the fruit base and bright citrus flavor, sweetened by the sprinkled sugar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the oranges and the meringue frosting and helps the whites stay stable.
The step that matters
Stirring the egg yolk mixture into the hot milk. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if added too quickly or left unstirred over heat. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the custard thickens smoothly.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, egg, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, flour. 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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