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Dessert

Orange Frosting

A citrus frosting made with orange rind, brandy, lemon juice, orange juice, egg yolks, and confectioners' sugar.

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 Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the grated orange rind, brandy, lemon juice, and orange juice in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and gradually add it to the slightly beaten egg yolks.

  4. Stir in confectioners' sugar until the frosting reaches a spreadable consistency.

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. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

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

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

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and body, helping the frosting thicken and hold together.
Confectioners' sugar
Adds sweetness and bulk, stiffening the liquid into a spreadable frosting.
Orange rind
Supplies concentrated orange aroma and flavour from the peel's oils.
Orange juice
Adds citrus flavour and liquid that helps set the frosting's consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the strained liquid to the yolks. Adding the acidic citrus mixture slowly and gradually, with the yolks only slightly beaten, helps keep the egg proteins from curdling and clumping. Straining removes solids that would make the frosting gritty.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, 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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