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Dessert

Orange Cream

A chilled gelatin-based dessert made with orange and lemon juice, sugar, and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Orange Cream

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 ↓

Orange Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Boil the gelatine in 1 pint of water until reduced by half.

  3. Add the sugar, orange juice, and lemon juice to the gelatine mixture.

Combine and beat

  1. Beat the heavy cream until frothy.

  2. Strain the gelatine mixture through muslin into the cream. Mix gently.

  3. Beat the combined mixture for 10 minutes.

Set

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold. Refrigerate until set.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Orange + creamtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when beaten.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the citrus juice.
Orange juice
Provides the main orange flavour and some acidity.

The step that matters

Beat the combined mixture for 10 minutes. Gelatine begins to set as it cools, so beating while it is still fluid helps trap air and build a smooth, even texture. Beating after it has thickened can leave lumps or a dense, uneven set.

Swap the orange

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

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

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