Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Custard

A custard made with eggs, orange rind, juice, water, and sugar, boiled until thick and chilled.

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

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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Separate the whites from the yolks of the eggs and set the yolks aside in a cool place.

  2. Add the grated rind and juice of the oranges to the egg whites and beat well.

  3. Add ½ pint of water to the mixture.

  4. Let the mixture sit for 1 hour.

  5. Beat the egg yolks.

  6. Add the beaten yolks and 1 cup of sugar to the orange mixture.

  7. Strain the mixture into a pitcher.

Cook the custard

  1. Place the pitcher in a basin of boiling water.

  2. Boil rapidly, stirring continuously, until the custard thickens to the consistency of heavy cream.

Cool and chill

  1. Allow the custard to cool.

  2. Pour the custard into glass cups and refrigerate until cold.

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

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

  3. Egg + orangetop 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

Eggs
Proteins set as they heat, thickening the custard and giving it body.
Oranges
Grated rind adds aroma and the juice adds acidity that brightens the sweet custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the orange juice.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard. Egg proteins set as they heat, which thickens the custard. Boiling rapidly while stirring continuously spreads the heat evenly, so the eggs thicken smoothly instead of curdling or sticking to the bottom of the pitcher.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

More orange custard recipes

Pudding 8Pie 6Preserved 4Seville 4 See all 86 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes