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
Make the custard
Beat the eggs until light, then add the sweet milk.
Mix the sugar, salt, and cornstarch together, then add to the egg mixture.
Place the mixture in a double boiler and cook until thick, stirring constantly.
When the mixture becomes very stiff, remove from heat and add the butter and coconut.
Set aside to cool.
Add fruit and serve
Peel the oranges, remove seeds and tough skins, and cut into pieces.
Once the cornstarch mixture is cold, add the oranges and serve in sauce dishes or chill in molds.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Orange + coconuttop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together584 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,467 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Enrich the custard and help it set as it cooks and thickens.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the milk mixture into a firm, smooth pudding as it cooks.
- Sweet milk
- Forms the liquid base of the pudding and carries its sweetness and body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and balances the flavor of the oranges.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richer flavor and a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
- Oranges
- Add bright, acidic flavor and fresh fruit texture to the pudding.
The step that matters
Cooking the custard until thick. Cornstarch must be cooked long enough, with constant stirring, to swell and thicken fully. Undercooked starch leaves the pudding thin and can taste raw, while stirring prevents scorching and lumps against the pan.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar, butter, coconut):
- Vanillafits better
- Bananafits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, butter, coconut. 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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