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Dessert

Orange Cream

A custard-like dessert made from orange juice, rind, sugar, water, egg whites, and yolks.

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

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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine the juice of 4 Seville oranges and the finely pared rind in a pan with 1 pint of water and 8 ounces of sugar.

  2. Beat the whites of 5 eggs until stiff and add them to the pan.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring continuously until thick and white.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve and let it cool.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of 5 eggs well and stir them into the cooled mixture.

  2. Return the mixture to the pan and cook over low heat until just about to boil.

  3. Pour the mixture into a dish to cool, stirring until completely cold.

Serve

  1. Transfer the cooled custard to jelly glasses for serving.

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 + 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. 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

Eggs
Whites trap air for a stiff, thick set; yolks thicken the mixture as it cooks.
Seville orange juice
Provides the sharp, acidic citrus flavour that balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps give it a smooth, set body.

The step that matters

Cooking the yolks over low heat. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat but can curdle or scramble if overheated. Cooking slowly, just to near boiling, keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

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