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Orange Custard

A custard made with milk, cornstarch, butter, egg yolks, sugar, and orange pieces, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Orange Custard

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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk and cornstarch in a saucepan.

  2. Heat gently until thickened, then remove from heat.

  3. Stir in butter and egg yolks.

Prepare the oranges

  1. Cut up oranges.

  2. Cover oranges with sugar in a bowl.

Assemble and finish

  1. Pour custard over the oranges and mix well.

  2. Beat egg whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the whipped egg whites over the custard.

  4. Brown the frosting under a broiler if desired.

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

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens when heated.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard as it heats.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the custard.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form a light, airy topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the whites hold their peaks.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolk proteins set at high temperature, so adding them to a very hot custard can scramble them into lumps. Removing the pan from the heat first lets them blend in smoothly.

“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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