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Dessert

Orange Soufflet

A custard-like dessert made with cream, flour, rose water, cinnamon, orange peel, marmalade, eggs, and brandy, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,437 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Orange Soufflet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, mix the flour with the cream.

  2. Add rose water, cinnamon, and orange peel; stir until boiling.

  3. Strain the mixture and sweeten it, then let it cool.

  4. Mix in the orange marmalade.

  5. Beat the eggs with the brandy and combine with the cooled mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a buttered mold.

  2. Place the mold in a saucepan of boiling water.

  3. Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes without a cover.

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. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rose + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together876 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cream
Provides richness and moisture, giving the soufflé a smooth, tender body.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a base that holds the other ingredients together.
Eggs
Provide structure as they set, giving the soufflé its body and light texture.
Orange marmalade
Adds sweetness and bright citrus acidity to the custard.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the base.

The step that matters

Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes without a cover. Eggs set gently as they heat, so the custard firms through without curdling. Cooking in a water bath keeps the heat even and gentle, and leaving the mold uncovered is what the record specifies.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour, rose, cinnamon, egg, brandy, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, rose, cinnamon, egg, brandy, butter. 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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