Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Souffle

A layered dessert of oranges, custard, and whipped egg whites served over sponge cake or ladyfingers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Orange Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oranges

  1. Pare and slice the oranges.

  2. Sprinkle the sliced oranges with ½ cup sugar and let them stand.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine the egg yolks, corn starch, milk, and 2 tablespoons sugar.

  2. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly.

Make the meringue and assemble

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add powdered sugar to the beaten egg whites to sweeten.

  3. In a glass dish, layer the sponge cake or ladyfingers.

  4. Spread the oranges over the cake layer.

  5. Spread the custard over the oranges.

  6. Top with the beaten egg whites.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Orange + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Yolks thicken the custard and whites whip into the light topping.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk custard so it holds its layer when cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, setting into a soft, creamy layer.
Sugar
Sweetens the oranges and the custard, and helps the egg whites hold their structure.
Sweet oranges
Provide the fruit flavor and juicy layer beneath the custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Cook over medium heat while stirring constantly. Heat thickens the starch and sets the egg yolks, but overheating can scramble the yolks and leave lumps, so the custard must be stirred throughout.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, corn, milk. 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 souffle recipes

Frozen 3 See all 12 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipes