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Dessert

Orange Delicieuse

A chilled orange custard dessert made with sugar, orange juice, cream, eggs, orange peel, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Delicieuse

serves eighteen

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup and custard

  1. Boil together for ten minutes three cups of sugar and one and one-half cups of water; cool, then add three cups of orange juice.

  2. Scald one and one-half cups of cream in a double boiler; when scalded, add the beaten yolks of three eggs and cook till it coats the spoon (about five minutes).

Combine and freeze

  1. When cold, mix the custard with the syrup; beat one and a half cups of thick cream and add it to the other ingredients, then freeze at once.

  2. When nearly frozen, stir in one-half cup of finely shredded orange peel.

Scaling

  1. This recipe can easily be divided, using one or two thirds, as one likes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

240Calories
8 gProtein
11 gFat
29 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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. Sugar + creamtop 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. Orange + creamtop 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the cream mixture as they cook, giving the custard body.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the frozen dessert a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and lowers the freezing point, keeping the frozen dessert soft.
Orange juice
Supplies the main orange flavor and acidity to the syrup base.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until it coats the spoon. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but overheating can scramble them. Stop once the custard coats a spoon so the base stays smooth before it is cooled and frozen.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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