Skip to main content
Dessert

Princess Pudding

A gelatin-based pudding made with milk, egg yolks, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Princess Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks lightly in a basin.

  2. Boil the milk.

  3. Pour the hot milk over the yolks.

  4. Add the gelatine.

  5. Return to the saucepan and cook gently without boiling until thick and the gelatine is dissolved.

  6. Stir in the sugar.

  7. Pour the mixture into a large basin.

  8. Add the orange juice, lemon juice, and cochineal.

Set and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gently fold the beaten whites into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  4. Refrigerate until set.

  5. Turn out the set pudding.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard base and add richness as they cook gently.
Gelatine
Sets the pudding so it holds its shape when turned out.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the mixture and give it an airy texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the yolks thicken into a custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the citrus acidity.

The step that matters

Cook gently without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but boiling can curdle them and leave a grainy texture. Gentle heat also lets the gelatine dissolve fully so the pudding sets evenly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes