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Dessert

Orange-Cream

A custard dessert made with Seville orange rind, brandy, orange juice, sugar, egg yolks, and cream.

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

  1. Boil the rind of the Seville orange until very tender.

  2. Beat the rind finely in a mortar.

Make the custard

  1. Add brandy, juice of the orange, sugar, and egg yolks.

  2. Beat for 10 minutes.

  3. Gradually pour in boiling cream while beating.

  4. Continue beating until cold.

  5. If using a mold, dissolve isinglass in a little water and add with the cream.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into custard cups or glasses.

  2. Set in a deep dish of boiling water 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.

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 + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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 cream into a rich, smooth custard as they set with gentle heat.
Boiling cream
Provides fat and body, giving the custard a smooth, creamy texture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the orange juice.
Seville orange juice
Adds bright acidity and citrus flavour that cuts through the richness.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that helps a mold hold its shape when chilled.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in boiling cream while beating. Adding hot cream slowly, while beating, gently warms the egg yolks so they blend smoothly. Pouring it in all at once can scramble the yolks and leave the custard grainy.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, egg, 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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