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.
Prepare the carrots
Boil the red carrots until tender.
Cut off the red part and rub it through a sieve or tamis cloth.
Make the pudding
In a bowl, combine the carrot pulp, French bread crumbs, sifted sugar, orange flower water, cream, candied citron, grated nutmeg, and softened butter.
Add the beaten eggs and mix well.
Pour the mixture into a dish with a pastry crust around the rim.
Bake
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set and golden.
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.
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Carrot + orangetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together737 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,424 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,746 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Red carrots
- Provide the main bulk and sweet, earthy flavor of the pudding.
- French bread crumbs
- Absorb liquid and help give the pudding a soft, body-holding texture.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to bind the pudding into a sliceable custard-like structure.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture, producing a softer, more tender set.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
- Sifted sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly in the oven.
The step that matters
Baking until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves it runny, while overbaking makes it dry and grainy, so watch for a firm center and golden top.
Swap the carrot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, orange, cream, nutmeg, butter, egg):
- Sweet potatofits better
- Potatofits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Carrotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, orange, cream, nutmeg, 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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