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Dessert

Orange Cream

A thickened orange custard made with oranges, eggs, cream, and powdered sugar.

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

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Orange Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the orange base

  1. Grate the peel of 6 oranges into 3 cups of hot water.

  2. Beat the juice and pulp of the oranges with 4 eggs.

  3. Sweeten the liquid to taste and strain it.

Cook and serve

  1. Simmer the mixture until it thickens to a cream-like consistency.

  2. Pour into glasses and serve.

Richer version

  1. For a richer version, mix 3 egg yolks, 1 pint of cream, 1 pound of powdered sugar, and the juice and grated rind of 1 orange.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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
Thicken the mixture as they set with gentle heat, giving the cream-like body.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, softening the texture in the richer version.
Oranges
Provide the juice, pulp and peel that give the dish its citrus flavour and aroma.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the acidity of the orange juice.

The step that matters

Simmer until it thickens. Egg proteins set gradually when heated, so the mixture thickens into a cream. Overheating or boiling can scramble the eggs and leave a grainy texture, while stopping too early leaves it thin.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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