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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A baked pudding made with raisins, orange and lemon rinds, sugar, butter, egg, baking soda, sour milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Orange Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Grind together the raisins, lemon rind, and orange rind.

  2. Cream the sugar and butter together.

  3. Add the beaten egg and the ground ingredients to the mixture.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and alternate adding it with the flour to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a baking dish and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 2 hours.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Butter
Creams with the sugar to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and a tangy note.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the sour milk and alternating it with the flour. Baking soda needs an acid to react and raise the batter. Adding it through the sour milk, and alternating with the flour, spreads the reaction evenly so the pudding rises without tunnels or a dense, soda-tasting layer.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, lemon, sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour. 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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