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Dessert

Orange Cream

A custard-like dessert made from orange juice, rind, water, sugar, egg whites, and yolks, thickened and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Orange Cream

Why it works: Orange and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the orange base

  1. Combine the orange juice, rind, water, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture while stirring until it thickens and turns white.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve and let it cool.

Add the eggs and cool

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until well combined.

  2. Add the yolks to the cooled mixture and stir over low heat until just about to boil.

  3. Transfer to a basin to cool completely, stirring occasionally.

Serve

  1. Pour into jelly glasses and serve with jellies.

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. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Orange and sugar 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

Seville oranges
Provide the juice and fragrant rind that flavour the cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and helps it thicken as the mixture is heated.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they gently set when heated, giving it a rich body.
Egg whites
Listed in the ingredients but not used in any step of this method.

The step that matters

Adding the yolks over low heat. Egg yolks can scramble if heated too fast. Stirring over low heat until just about to boil lets them thicken the cream smoothly without curdling.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

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