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Dessert

Orange Mould

A custard-like dessert made from orange and lemon juice, sugar, eggs, cornflour, and water.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. Combine the juices of the oranges and lemon.

  2. Add enough water to the fruit juices to make 1 quart of liquid.

Make the mould

  1. In a saucepan, heat 1½ pints of this liquid with the sugar until near boiling.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the cornflour with the remaining liquid and the beaten eggs.

  3. Once the liquid in the saucepan is near boiling, stir in the cornflour and egg mixture.

  4. Continue stirring over gentle heat for 5 minutes until thickened.

  5. Pour the mixture into a wetted mould and let it cool.

  6. Once cooled, turn out the mould and serve.

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. 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. Sugar + eggtop 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

Cornflour
Thickens the liquid into a set, sliceable mould as it heats.
Eggs
Add richness and help the mixture set and hold its shape when cooled.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart citrus juice and balances its acidity.
Oranges
Provide the main liquid, flavour and aroma of the mould.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornflour and egg mixture into the hot liquid. Cornflour thickens only when heated, and stirring keeps it dispersed so it does not form lumps. Gentle heat helps the eggs thicken without curdling or scrambling.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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