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Dessert

Orange Butter

A butter mixture flavored with orange flower water, sugar, and almond paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Orange Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add the fine sugar and orange flower water, mixing well.

  3. Incorporate the butter and almond paste until smooth.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve into a dish.

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 + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Provide richness and a smooth, thick body to the paste.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture that holds the paste together.
Almonds
Contribute body and a nutty flavour to the paste.
Fine sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the mixture.
Orange flower water
Adds a fragrant floral citrus aroma.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the mixture through a fine sieve breaks up any lumps from the egg yolks and almond paste, giving a smooth, even texture once the butter is fully incorporated.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, almond. 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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