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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A custard pudding made with milk, corn starch, eggs, butter, sugar, salt, and oranges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Orange Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oranges

  1. Remove all seeds from the oranges and set aside.

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk, corn starch, egg yolks, butter, sugar, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat until thickened.

  3. Pour the custard over the prepared oranges.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the pudding.

  3. Brown the top slightly under a broiler or in a hot oven.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

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

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  5. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard as it cooks, giving it a smooth, set texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard, adding richness and smoothness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tart oranges.
Oranges
Provide the bright citrus flavor and fruit base beneath the custard.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the topping and browns when broiled.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Corn starch thickens only when the custard reaches a full simmer and is stirred; undercooked custard stays thin and runny, while overheating can curdle the egg yolks.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, egg, butter, sugar. 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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