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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A baked pudding made with butter, sugar, orange rinds, apples, eggs, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Pound the butter and sugar together in a mortar until well combined.

  2. Grate in the rinds of the oranges and the apple(s), then mix thoroughly.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and combine well.

Bake

  1. Spread the mixture to a thickness of ½ inch on the puff paste.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden 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 + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to add richness and a tender, fine texture.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps bind it with the butter when pounded together.
Seville orange rinds
Add aromatic oils and a bright, bitter citrus flavour.
Apple
Adds moisture and body to the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling and set during baking to give a firmer structure.
Puff paste
Forms the crisp, flaky base that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Eggs set as they heat, and the filling must cook through while the puff paste browns and crisps. Pulling it too early leaves a loose centre and soft pastry; leaving it too long can scorch the top.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, apple, 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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