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Dessert

Pudding

A baked almond and lemon pudding made with egg yolks, whites, and orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. In another bowl, beat the yolks and add grated lemon peel and orange-flower water.

  4. Combine the yolk mixture with the egg whites, beating for a few more minutes.

  5. Gradually add the ground almonds while continuing to beat the mixture for about 30 minutes.

Bake

  1. Well butter a dish and pour the mixture into it.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground almonds
Provide the bulk and nutty flavour of the pudding, giving it a dense, moist body.
Eggs (whites)
Beaten until stiff, they trap air that lifts the pudding and gives it a light texture.
Eggs (yolks)
Add richness and fat, helping set the pudding and keep it tender.
Lemon peel
Adds fragrant citrus aroma and bright flavour without extra liquid.

The step that matters

Folding the whites into the batter. Egg whites are whipped to hold air; beating them too hard or too long after combining can deflate the foam, leaving a dense pudding instead of a light one.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raspberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, lemon, egg, butter. 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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