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Dessert

Orange Cream

A chilled orange‑flavored custard dessert made with orange juice, sugar, egg yolks, gelatin, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Orange Cream

Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Orange Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat ½ cup orange juice and ¾ cup sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Beat 2 egg yolks with the remaining ¾ cup sugar.

  3. Cook the egg mixture with the orange juice mixture over hot water until thickened.

  4. Soften ¼ package gelatin in ¼ cup cold water.

  5. Add the softened gelatin to the mixture and strain.

Set and serve

  1. Combine with 1½ cups cream.

  2. Pour into a mold.

  3. Chill until set.

  4. Serve cold with orange sections around it.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture and add richness as they cook.
Gelatin
Sets the cream so the dessert holds its shape when chilled.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the tartness of the orange juice.
Orange juice
Provides the main citrus flavour and acidity.

The step that matters

Cook the egg mixture over hot water until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can curdle them. Gentle heat over hot water thickens the custard evenly without scrambling the eggs.

Swap the orange

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

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

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

More orange cream recipes

Pie 18Custard 17Pudding 10Ice 5Sauce 4Dessert 3 See all 99 →

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