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Dessert

Golden Cream

A gelatin dessert made with orange juice, lemon juice, egg yolks, sugar, and a topping of beaten egg whites and preserve.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Golden Cream

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 ↓

Golden Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in cold water and strain it.

  2. Add the orange juice, grated rind, lemon juice, beaten egg yolks, and sugar.

  3. Stir over gentle heat until it boils, then pour into a mold.

Finish the dessert

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and mix in the preserve until it forms tiny shreds.

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

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable dessert as it cools.
Egg yolks
Thicken the citrus mixture and add richness as they cook gently.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lightness and an airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the citrus mixture and balances its tartness.
Orange juice
Provides the main orange flavour and liquid for the dessert.

The step that matters

Stir over gentle heat until it boils. Egg yolks can scramble if overheated, so keep the heat gentle and stir constantly while the mixture thickens.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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.

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