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Dessert

Orange Cream

A chilled dessert made with cream, lemon, oranges, gelatin, and sugar.

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

Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Squeeze the juice from the lemon and oranges.

  2. Let the rind of 1 orange soak in the juice for 1 hour.

  3. Boil the gelatin in water.

  4. Let the gelatin cool.

Make the cream

  1. Whip the cream until frothy.

  2. Stir all ingredients together.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and set it on ice to cool.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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

Cream
Whipped into frothy air bubbles, it gives the finished dessert a light, creamy texture.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable dessert as it cools.
Oranges
Provide juice and rind for citrus flavour, aroma and a fresh, tangy taste.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the citrus flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the citrus juice.

The step that matters

Let the gelatin cool before combining. Gelatin must be dissolved, and boiling it can weaken its setting power, so the dessert may not firm properly. Letting it cool also keeps it from melting the whipped cream when stirred in.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, gelatin, orange. 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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Pie 18Custard 17Pudding 10Ice 5Sauce 4Dessert 3 See all 99 →

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