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Dessert

Carrot Pudding

A sweet carrot custard baked with eggs, butter, sugar, 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, then drain and let them dry by the fire.

  2. Remove the yellow hearts and puree the red outsides through a colander.

Make the batter

  1. In a saucepan, mix arrowroot and milk over heat until smooth.

  2. Combine the smooth mixture with the carrot puree, then add orange-flower water and sugar.

  3. Stir in the whole eggs and egg yolks, then mix in the oiled butter.

  4. Whip the egg whites to a froth and fold them into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and bake in a steady oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes.

  2. Turn out the pudding onto a hot dish and 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 bulk and sweet, earthy flavour, and moisture in the pudding.
Arrowroot or cornflour
Thickens the milk and carrot mixture so the pudding holds its shape when baked.
Eggs
Bind the pudding and set during baking, giving it structure.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they add lightness and help the pudding rise in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to its browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites must be whipped to a stable froth and folded in gently so air is kept. Overmixing deflates the foam, leaving a denser pudding with less rise.

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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