Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Cream

A chilled gelatin dessert flavored with orange juice and milk, sweetened with sugar and enriched with egg yolks and whites.

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

Why it works: Gelatin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Orange Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for at least 10 minutes.

  2. In a double boiler, heat the milk.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until very light.

  2. Stir the yolk mixture into the scalded milk, then remove from heat.

  3. Stir in the softened gelatin until dissolved.

Cool and set

  1. Place the mixture in a basin set in chipped ice and stir until cold.

  2. Add the orange juice and stir until it thickens.

  3. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  4. Pour into a mold and refrigerate for 3 hours.

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. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Milk and sugar 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

Gelatin
Sets the softened liquid into a firm, sliceable pudding as it chills.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the custard; whites are folded in for a lighter texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the custard is built on.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the beaten yolks become light.
Orange juice
Adds the citrus flavor and tartness that define the dish.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that gives the pudding its lightness. Vigorous stirring deflates them, leaving a denser, heavier set pudding.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, milk, egg, sugar. 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 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipesOrange CustardOrange Custard56 recipes