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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with sliced oranges, milk, eggs, sugar, and corn starch, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 oranges

  1. Seed and slice the oranges, then pour 1 cup of sugar over them.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine boiling milk, egg yolks, ½ cup sugar, and corn starch; boil until thickened.

  2. Once nearly cold, pour the mixture over the oranges.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff, then spread over the top.

  2. Brown the pudding in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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 main fruit flavour and juice that softens the pudding base.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and structure as they cook.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms a light topping and browns in the oven.
Corn starch
Thickens the boiled milk mixture into a smooth custard.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the custard and adds body and softness.

The step that matters

Boiling the custard until thickened. Egg yolks and corn starch must be fully cooked to set the custard. Undercooked yolks stay thin and do not thicken, while the starch needs boiling to swell and gel.

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.

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