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Dessert

Orange Souffle

A chilled orange custard layered with sliced oranges and topped with a sweetened whipped egg white mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 the oranges and slice them.

  2. Layer the sliced oranges and sugar in a glass dish until all oranges are used.

  3. Let the layered oranges stand for 2 hours.

Make the custard

  1. Whisk the egg yolks, milk, sugar, and grated orange peel together over low heat until thickened.

  2. Pour the custard over the oranges when it is cool enough not to break the dish.

Top and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gently stir sugar into the beaten egg whites.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture into a smooth custard when gently heated.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the topping its light, airy structure.
Oranges
Provide the fruity base layer and bright citrus flavor.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and body.
Sugar
Sweetens the oranges, custard, and meringue topping.

The step that matters

Pour the custard over the oranges when it is cool enough not to break the dish. Pouring hot custard onto a glass dish risks thermal shock and cracking. Letting the custard cool somewhat reduces that risk while keeping it warm enough to settle over the fruit.

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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