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Dessert

Orange Pudding

A cornmeal pudding with butter, sugar, milk, eggs, and orange.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

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 batter

  1. In a saucepan, bring the butter and milk to a boil.

  2. Stir in the cornmeal and cook until done.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Add the sugar, egg yolks, juice, and grated peel of 1 orange.

Bake

  1. Peel the other 2 oranges and place the sections in a well-greased pan.

  2. Pour the batter over the orange sections and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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

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

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

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

  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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

White cornmeal
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and soft, set texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding structure and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the cornmeal cooks into a thick base, adding moisture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the orange.
Oranges
Add acidity and bright aroma from the juice and peel, plus fruit pieces in the base.

The step that matters

Let the cornmeal mixture cool before adding the sugar and egg yolks. Egg proteins thicken and scramble when hot. Cooling the cornmeal base first lets the yolks blend in smoothly and set evenly, instead of curdling into lumps.

Swap the orange

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

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

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