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Dessert

Orange Mould

A gelatin-based orange dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, orange rind, and orange juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,696 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Orange Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Soak the gelatin in some of the milk.

  2. Boil the remaining milk and add the gelatin, stirring until dissolved.

  3. Boil the orange rind with the milk and remove it.

  4. Cut the orange rind into strips and leave it in.

Make the custard

  1. Add the sugar and the beaten yolks of the eggs, stirring until it thickens but do not let it boil.

  2. Let the mixture cool slightly.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and the orange juice.

Mould and serve

  1. Place sections of the 2 oranges (without seeds or white pith) in a wet mould and pour the mixture over them.

  2. Once cold, turn out the mould.

  3. Garnish with whipped cream.

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 + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  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).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Yolks thicken the custard and whites give the mousse its light, airy texture.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the custard and gelatine are made in.
Sweet oranges
Supply the orange flavour and the fragrant oil from the rind.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the citrus.
Orange juice
Adds bright citrus acidity and extra orange flavour.

The step that matters

Thicken the custard without boiling it. Egg yolks scramble and curdle if they boil, so the mixture must only thicken gently. Gelatine also needs to be fully dissolved first, or it will set unevenly in the mousse.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, 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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