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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with oranges, biscuits, butter, milk, cinnamon, eggs, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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. Peel the oranges finely.

  2. Boil the peeled oranges until tender.

  3. Rub the boiled oranges through a fine sieve to preserve the pulp.

Make the custard base

  1. In a bowl, combine the biscuits, nutmeg, and butter.

  2. Pour the boiling milk or cream, infused with cinnamon, over the biscuit mixture.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Add the orange pulp and beaten eggs.

  5. Sweeten with sugar.

  6. Stir in the brandy.

Bake and serve

  1. Edge a baking dish with puff pastry.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish.

  3. Garnish the top with pastry strips.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Biscuit + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Biscuit + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together312 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the pudding into a sliceable custard as they cook.
Naples biscuits
Soak up the hot milk and form the bulk and body of the pudding.
Orange pulp
Adds bright citrus flavour and moisture to the custard.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender crumb to the biscuit base.
Milk or cream
Carries cinnamon flavour and gives the custard its moist, creamy body.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs set as they heat, so over-baking makes the custard curdled, grainy and watery. Pull it from the oven once the centre barely wobbles.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, nutmeg, butter, milk, cinnamon, egg, sugar. 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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