Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Cream

A chilled gelatin dessert flavored with orange juice and zest, sweetened with sugar and enriched with cream and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Orange Cream

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Orange Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Soak the orange rind in the orange juice for 30 minutes.

Make the custard

  1. Melt the gelatine over boiling water, then add the orange juice and rind.

  2. When hot, stir in the beaten egg yolks and sugar until thickened.

  3. Add the cream and strain into a mould that has been wet with cold water.

Set and serve

  1. Refrigerate until set and serve cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + orangetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,170 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Gelatine
Sets the cream into a firm, sliceable body as it cools.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture when gently heated and add richness to the cream.
Cream
Adds fat and a smooth, rich texture to the set dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the acidity of the orange juice.
Orange juice
Provides the main citrus flavour and liquid for the mixture.

The step that matters

When hot, stir in the beaten egg yolks and sugar until thickened.. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the mixture gets too hot they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, 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.

More orange cream recipes

Pie 18Custard 17Pudding 10Ice 5Sauce 4Dessert 3 See all 99 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipesOrange CustardOrange Custard56 recipes