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Dessert

Lemon or Orange Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with lemon or orange, sugar, biscuits, brandy, candied peel, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lemon or Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavouring

  1. Rub the yellow rind off the lemons or oranges with the lump sugar.

  2. Pound the sugar in a mortar.

  3. Add the pulp of the fruit, removing all rind, seeds, and pith.

  4. Mix in the grated biscuits, brandy, and chopped candied peel.

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the eggs, using only half the whites.

  3. Mix the butter and eggs thoroughly.

  4. Incorporate the other ingredients.

Bake and serve

  1. Line the edges of a pie dish with a rich crust.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish.

  3. Bake until set and golden.

  4. Turn out onto a serving dish.

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. Lemon + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Biscuit + orangetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together371 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling and set it into a firm, sliceable custard as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, smooth texture to the filling.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the pudding and, when pounded with the rind, draws out the citrus oils for aroma.
Lemons or seville oranges
Provide acidity and fragrant citrus flavour from the rind and pulp.
Naples biscuits
Add body and absorb moisture, giving the filling structure as it bakes.
Brandy
Adds aroma and depth of flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves the filling runny, while overbaking makes it curdle, weep, and turn rubbery, so watch for a set centre and even colour.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, biscuit, brandy, butter, 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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