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Dessert

Orange Nut Custard

A custard made with orange juice, sugar, cornstarch, eggs, and nut meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Nut Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the orange juice with the grated rind.

  2. Blend the sugar and cornstarch in the water, then add to the orange juice.

  3. Stir well and add the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  4. Remove from heat and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and nut meats.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill and serve.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

  4. Orange + meattop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together449 recipes

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

  5. Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

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

Orange and sugar 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

Orange juice
Provides the citrus liquid base and bright flavour of the custard.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the custard body.
Eggs
Yolks thicken and enrich the custard; whites, folded in, add lightness.
Nut meats
Add crunchy texture and a toasted, nutty contrast to the smooth custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the orange juice.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten yolks. Egg yolks thicken when warmed, but if the mixture is too hot they scramble and turn grainy. Stir well and remove from heat promptly so the custard thickens smoothly.

Swap the orange

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

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

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