Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Pudding

A steamed or baked pudding made from breadcrumbs, milk, butter, sugar, oranges, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Boil the milk and pour it over the breadcrumbs.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, and grated rind of the oranges.

  3. When cool, add the beaten eggs and juice of 1 orange.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into well-buttered cups or darioles, cover with greased paper, and steam for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Alternatively, bake in a greased pie dish for half an hour.

  3. Serve with cream.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs
Absorb the hot milk and form the body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set the mixture when cooked, giving it a firm, custard-like structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Milk
Softens the breadcrumbs and adds moisture to the pudding.
Oranges
Provide aroma and citrus brightness from the rind and juice.

The step that matters

When cool, add the beaten eggs. Adding eggs to very hot mixture can scramble them and leave lumps. Letting it cool first lets the eggs blend smoothly and set evenly when cooked.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, 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.

More orange pudding recipes

You might also like