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Dessert

Orange Cream for Pudding

A sweet orange cream made by boiling sugar and orange peel, then mixing with orange juice, rum, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 for Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and 2-inch peel of a Seville orange in water for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the strained juice of 1 sweet orange and rum, then boil for 3 minutes.

Finish the cream

  1. Beat the mixture into the thick cream until very smooth and nearly 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 + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  4. Rum + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and orange 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

Thick cream
Provides the rich body and fat that give the finished orange cream its smooth, thick texture.
Loaf sugar
Dissolves in the boiling water to sweeten the mixture and balance the citrus acidity.
Seville orange peel
Releases aromatic oils into the boiling water, flavouring the syrup with bitter orange aroma.
Sweet orange juice
Adds bright citrus flavour and acidity to the syrup.
Rum
Adds aroma and depth of flavour to the orange syrup.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture into the thick cream until very smooth and nearly cold.. Adding the warm syrup too quickly or while still hot can thin or curdle the cream. Chilling it while beating helps the cream stay thick and smooth.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rum, 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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