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Dessert

Orange Sauce

A sauce made by creaming butter with sugar, flour, orange rind, orange juice, and boiling water, then boiling and serving hot with puddings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Orange Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream 1 cup butter with 1 cup sugar.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon flour.

  3. Add grated rind of 1 orange and juice of 2.

  4. Add 1 pint boiling water.

  5. Bring to the boil.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with boiled puddings.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

566Calories
14 gProtein
1 gFat
123 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Orange1 medium (131g)62
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 Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

  3. Flour + orangetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,821 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps balance the sharpness of the orange.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Orange
Rind adds aroma and juice adds bright acidity.

The step that matters

Bring to the boil.. Flour thickens only when its starch swells in hot liquid, and the sauce must reach a boil to thicken fully and cook out the raw flour taste.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. 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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