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Dessert

Hot Orange Sauce for Ice Cream

A hot orange sauce made from orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, and corn starch, served with ice cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Hot Orange Sauce for Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mix one cup of orange juice, the juice of one lemon, one teaspoon of corn starch dissolved in a little cold water, and one cup of sugar.

  2. Cook to a thick syrup.

  3. Strain.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

578Calories
15 gProtein
2 gFat
126 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

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

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

  2. Orange + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Orange juice
Provides the main flavour and liquid base of the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and, as it cooks, thickens it into a syrup.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce when heated.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the orange flavour.

The step that matters

Cook to a thick syrup. Cornstarch only thickens once it is heated enough to swell and gelatinise, so the sauce must simmer long enough to reach full thickness. Stopping early leaves it thin.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, corn. 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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