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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard dessert made with oranges, milk, sugar, cornstarch, and egg yolks, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,696 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oranges

  1. Peel and slice the oranges, then sprinkle them with ½ cup sugar.

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, heat 1 pint of milk.

  2. Mix 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  3. Add the cornstarch mixture to the heated milk along with a little salt and the yolks of 4 eggs.

  4. Cook until thickened, then let cool.

Assemble and top

  1. Cover the oranges with the custard.

  2. Beat the egg whites with ½ cup sugar until stiff.

  3. Spread the stiff egg whites on top.

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. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, and whites beaten with sugar form the stiff topping.
Cornstarch
Starch thickens the milk mixture so the custard sets smoothly when cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that is thickened and cooled.
Oranges
Provide the fruit layer and their citrus flavor beneath the custard.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened. Egg yolks and cornstarch thicken the custard only when heated gently; overheating can curdle the eggs or leave the custard lumpy. A double boiler keeps the heat gentle and even.

Swap the orange

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

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

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

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