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Dessert

Orange Souffle

A dessert of sliced oranges layered with sugar, topped with a cooled orange custard and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,696 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Orange Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oranges

  1. Peel and slice the oranges.

  2. In a high glass dish, layer the orange slices and sugar alternately until all the oranges are used.

  3. Let the dish stand for 2 hours.

Make the custard

  1. Make a soft boiled custard by combining the egg yolks, milk, sufficient sugar, and grated orange peel in a saucepan over low heat until thickened.

  2. Pour the custard over the oranges once it has cooled.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then stir in sugar and pour over the pudding.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Oranges
Provide the main fruit flavour and juice that softens and sweetens in the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and draws juice out of the orange slices as they stand.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a custard through gentle heating and add richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds creaminess.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the topping a light, airy structure.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over low heat. Egg yolks set at low temperatures; too much heat makes them scramble and curdle, so stir gently and remove from heat once thickened.

Swap the orange

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

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

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

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