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Dessert

Custard Pudding

A milk and egg yolk custard flavored with orange flower water and cinnamon, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Custard Pudding

Why it works: Orange and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,437 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Custard Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the milk gradually with the flour.

  2. Add the egg yolks, orange‑flower water, and cinnamon.

Cook and serve

  1. Butter a basin that will hold the mixture and pour the batter in.

  2. Tie a floured cloth over the basin.

  3. Place in boiling water and turn it occasionally for even cooking.

  4. Boil for half an hour.

  5. Serve with currant jelly and sweet sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Egg yolks thicken the custard and give it a rich, set texture when cooked.
Flour
Flour thickens the milk mixture so the pudding holds its shape rather than running.
Milk
Milk forms the liquid base that the eggs and flour set into a custard.

The step that matters

Turning the pudding in the boiling water. Egg-based puddings set gently; turning the basin keeps heat even so the custard cooks uniformly without curdling or developing a dense spot at one side.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, cinnamon, butter. 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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