Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Souffle

A chilled dessert made with orange juice, sugar syrup, cream, egg yolks, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar and water until it threads.

  2. Add orange juice and lemon juice to the syrup.

Make the custard base

  1. Scald the cream.

  2. When cool, mix in the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Combine this mixture with the syrup.

Finish and freeze

  1. When ready to freeze, fold in the whipped cream.

  2. Freeze until set.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken and emulsify the creamy base as they set.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the frozen dessert a smooth, soft texture.
Whipped cream
Folded in air for a light, airy body that keeps the set soufflé tender.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the dish and lowers the freezing point, keeping it soft rather than rock-hard.
Orange juice
Provides the main flavour and acidity, along with liquid for the syrup.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped cream gently. Whipped cream holds air that gives the soufflé its lightness. Stirring or beating it hard deflates the foam, leaving a dense, heavy texture after freezing.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Raisinfits less well

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

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes