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Dessert

Orange Soufflet

A custard-like dessert made with cream, eggs, orange flavorings, and 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 custard base

  1. In a saucepan, mix the cream with the flour, rose water, cinnamon, and orange peel.

  2. Stir until it boils.

  3. Strain the mixture and sweeten it.

  4. Let it cool.

  5. Once cool, mix in the orange marmalade.

Combine and cook

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the brandy.

  2. Combine the beaten eggs with the cream mixture.

  3. Grease a mold with butter and pour the mixture into it.

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

  5. 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 a smooth, tender body to the soufflé.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the soufflé its structure and body.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it holds together before the eggs are added.
Orange marmalade
Adds sweetness, fruity flavour and a little acidity.
Brandy
Adds aroma and depth of flavour to the eggs.

The step that matters

Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes without a cover. Egg-based mixtures set gently as their proteins coagulate with heat. Cooking in a water bath moderates the heat so the custard firms evenly without curdling or becoming rubbery. Leaving the mold uncovered is the step the record specifies, so follow it as written.

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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