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Dessert

Orleans Pudding

A gelatinous custard pudding with candied fruit, rum, and crushed ratafias.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Orleans Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Make a custard with egg yolks, sugar, and boiled milk.

  3. Add the gelatine to the hot custard and stir until dissolved.

  4. Strain the custard into a bowl.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Chop and wash the candied fruit, then toss in a frying pan with rum until absorbed.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a mould on ice, layer custard and minced fruit, then crushed ratafias, repeating until filled.

  2. Cover and let rest for an hour, then turn out and serve.

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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  2. Milk + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Currant + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a rich custard and add smoothness and richness.
Gelatine
Sets the custard so it holds its shape when turned out of the mould.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the yolks and milk.
Candied orange peel
Adds concentrated citrus aroma and chewy texture throughout the set custard.
Rum
Adds aroma and flavour to the candied fruit as it is absorbed.

The step that matters

Add the gelatine to the hot custard and stir until dissolved. Gelatine must fully dissolve into the warm custard; undissolved granules leave gritty specks and uneven setting. Custard that is too hot can also weaken gelatine's setting power, so it should be warm, not boiling, when the gelatine goes in.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, raisin, currant, rum):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, raisin, currant, rum. 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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