Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Souffle

A custard-based orange dessert with beaten egg whites baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,696 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Orange Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Make a custard by combining milk, egg yolks, and sugar in a bowl.

Assemble

  1. Place the orange pieces in a dish.

  2. Once the custard is cold, pour it over the oranges.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Mix the sugar into the beaten egg whites.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture over the custard.

  4. Place the dish in a pan of cold water.

  5. Bake until browned.

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. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness through their proteins and fat.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff foam, they create the airy, risen soufflé topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding creaminess and body.
Oranges
Provide the fruit flavour and acidity that cut through the sweet custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and stabilizes the beaten egg whites for a glossy topping.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Under-beaten whites collapse and fail to hold air, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy. Stiff, glossy peaks give the topping its lift when baked.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes