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Dessert

Oatmeal Pudding

A sweet, thick pudding made from soaked oatmeal, milk, sugar, almonds, orange‑flower water, lemon zest, butter, eggs, and optional currants or raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Oatmeal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the oatmeal overnight in the cream or milk.

  2. Season with sugar, beaten almonds, orange-flower water, lemon zest, and butter.

  3. Add currants or raisins if desired.

Cook and bake

  1. Boil the mixture until smooth and thick.

  2. Allow to cool slightly, then stir in the eggs.

  3. Bake 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Forms the body of the pudding and thickens as it cooks.
Cream or milk
Soaks the oatmeal and provides moisture and richness for a smooth texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding into a firm, sliceable custard.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavors.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs after cooling slightly. If the mixture is still very hot when the eggs go in, they can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Cooling slightly lets the eggs mix evenly, so they set into a smooth custard during baking.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, almond, orange, lemon, butter, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, almond, orange, lemon, butter, 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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