Skip to main content
Dessert

Carrot Pudding

A baked dessert made with carrot, biscuit powder, eggs, cream, and flavored with ratafia and orange or rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Boil the carrot until tender, about 5 minutes.

  2. Bruise the carrot in a mortar.

  3. Mix in the biscuit powder, egg yolks, egg whites, cream, ratafia, orange or rose water, nutmeg, and sugar.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a shallow dish with pastry and pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  3. Turn out to serve and dust with sugar.

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. Biscuit + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks and whites
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable structure as they heat.
Cream
Adds richness, moisture and a smooth, soft texture.
Carrot
Provides the main bulk, moisture and gentle natural sweetness.
Biscuit powder
Adds body and absorbs some liquid, helping the custard hold together.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds a light crust when dusted on top.

The step that matters

Bake only until set. Egg proteins set as they heat, and overbaking squeezes out liquid and makes the custard grainy or watery. Stop as soon as the centre has firmed.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, egg, cream, orange, nutmeg, sugar):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, egg, cream, orange, nutmeg, sugar. 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 carrot pudding recipes

Steamed 9 See all 154 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesBaking Powder BiscuitBaking Powder Biscuit119 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipes