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Dessert

Carrot Pudding

A baked carrot dessert made with carrots, milk, sugar, eggs, butter, and orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Carrot Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the carrots

  1. Boil the carrots in salted water until cooked.

  2. Drain the carrots.

  3. Let them dry by the fire.

  4. Remove the yellow hearts from the carrots.

  5. Puree the red outsides through a colander.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, mix arrowroot or cornflour with milk.

  2. Cook the mixture until smooth.

  3. Combine the smooth mixture with the carrot puree.

  4. Add orange-flower water and sugar.

  5. Stir in the whole eggs and egg yolks.

  6. Mix in the oiled butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites to a froth.

  2. Fold the froth into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  4. Bake in a steady oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes.

  5. Turn out the pudding onto a hot dish.

  6. Serve immediately.

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. Carrot + orangetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Carrot + arrowroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Arrowroot + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide the main body, sweetness and colour of the pudding once pureed.
Eggs
Set the pudding and add richness and structure as they cook.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they lighten the mixture and help it rise in the oven.
Arrowroot or cornflour
Thickens the milk into a smooth base that holds the carrot puree.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its soft, moist texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the froth, so the pudding bakes dense instead of light.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, milk, orange, sugar, egg, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, milk, orange, sugar, egg, 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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