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Dessert

Orange Custard

A custard made with oranges, sugar, cream, eggs, and candied peel, chilled and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Orange Custard

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Orange Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the orange infusion

  1. In a bowl, combine the sugar, thinly cut rinds, and juice of the oranges.

  2. Add 2 cups of boiling water and cover for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture into a saucepan and heat until nearly boiling.

Make the custard

  1. Stir in the beaten eggs and cook gently until thickened.

  2. Once cool, pour into custard glasses.

  3. Chill completely.

Serve

  1. Top with whipped cream and garnish with candied orange peel.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Orange + creamtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,170 recipes

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

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
Set the custard as they cook and thicken it gently.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft texture, and forms the whipped topping.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the orange infusion and balances its acidity.
Oranges
Provide the juice and zest that flavour the custard.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs and cook gently until thickened. Eggs set when heated, but too much heat makes them curdle and turn grainy. Cooking gently over low heat and stopping once the custard thickens keeps it smooth.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream. 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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