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Dessert

Baked Orange Souffle Pudding

A baked dessert made with orange juice, lemon juice, eggs, sugar, flour, and a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Baked Orange Souffle Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Beat the butter until creamy, then gradually add the sugar.

  3. Mix in the yolks of the eggs.

  4. Add the flour and baking powder.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate pot, mix the cornstarch, sugar, and salt.

  2. Pour in the hot orange and lemon juice and cook until boiling.

  3. Simmer over hot water for 10 minutes.

  4. Add the beaten egg.

  5. Pour this mixture over the cake batter in a shallow pan.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the cake and custard.

  3. Brown in the oven for about 8 minutes.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites folded in add lightness and structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake portion together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping it rise and turn light.
Cornstarch
Thickens the orange and lemon juice into a set custard layer.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
Orange juice
Supplies the main flavor and acidity of the custard layer.

The step that matters

Simmer the custard over hot water. Cornstarch must be fully boiled to thicken properly; gentle simmering over hot water keeps the custard smooth rather than scorched or lumpy while it sets.

Swap the orange

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

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

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