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Dessert

Orange Pudding Fan Catelli

A custard-like orange pudding with a puff pastry border, made with orange juice, rind, ratafias, sugar, cream, eggs, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,746 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Orange Pudding Fan Catelli

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.

Make the filling

  1. In a basin, combine the orange juice, orange rind with sugar, bruised ratafias, sugar, cream, egg yolks, whipped egg whites, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Whisk the mixture for 5 minutes until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish lined with a thin border of puff pastry.

  2. Sprinkle some bruised ratafias over the surface.

  3. Place the pudding in a baking tin and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes, until light brown.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a soft, sliceable body.
Egg whites
Whipped to add lightness and air, helping the pudding rise and feel airy.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a smooth, tender texture.
Orange juice
Provides acidity and bright flavour that balances the sugar and richness.
Ratafias
Bruised almond biscuits that soak up liquid and add a chewy, nutty texture.

The step that matters

Baking until light brown. Egg-based custards set as the proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it dry and curdled.

Swap the orange

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

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

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

Lemon 10Baked 5Steamed 5Banana 4 See all 349 →

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