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Dessert

Orange Filling

A sweet orange custard made with cornflour, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, egg yolks, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Zest the orange and set aside.

  2. In a saucepan, combine cornflour, juice of 2 oranges, lemon juice, and sugar.

  3. Add enough water to make the total liquid equal to 1 pint.

Make the filling

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.

  2. Remove from heat and add the egg yolks and butter, stirring until smooth.

  3. Cool the filling before using.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Cornflour
Thickens the juice into a set, glossy filling as it heats and gelatinises.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and add thickening and a smooth, rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the citrus juice.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother mouthfeel and a glossy finish.
Orange juice
Provides the main citrus flavour and most of the liquid.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks scramble and curdle when exposed to high heat. Taking the pan off the heat before adding them lets them blend in smoothly and thicken gently.

Swap the orange

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

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

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