Skip to main content
Dessert

Hungarian Cream

A citrus custard made with orange and lemon juice, sugar, eggs, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Hungarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the citrus base

  1. Squeeze the juice from the oranges and lemons.

  2. Grate a bit of rind from each.

  3. Add the sugar to the juice and mix well.

  4. Beat the egg yolks until well combined.

  5. Add the beaten yolks to the juice mixture.

  6. Place the mixture in a double boiler and cook until it becomes a fine velvety paste.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Remove the paste from the heat.

  3. Gradually fold in the beaten egg whites until fully combined.

  4. Serve in individual punch cups or other molds.

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.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the citrus mixture into a custard, and whites add lightness when folded in.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart citrus juice and helps balance its acidity.
Oranges
Provide the main juice, adding sweetness and aroma to the cream.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright flavor that cuts through the sugar and richness.

The step that matters

Cooking the paste in the double boiler. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the heat is too high they can scramble and turn grainy. Gentle, indirect heat in a double boiler keeps the mixture smooth and velvety.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes