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Orange Punch

A punch made with sugar, lemon juice, boiling water, calf's-foot jelly, brandy, rum, and orange wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sherbet

  1. Dissolve the sugar in a little water.

  2. Add the lemon juice.

  3. Pour the boiling water over it to make the sherbet.

  4. Mix in the calf's-foot jelly.

Finish and serve

  1. Combine the brandy, rum, and orange wine with the sherbet.

  2. Serve hot or cold, or bottle it and keep in a cold cellar.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Rum + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  5. Rum + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and dissolves into the sherbet base.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus flavour that balances the sweetness.
Calf's-foot jelly
Adds body and gelling richness to the punch.
Brandy
Adds alcohol strength and warm aroma to the punch.
Rum
Adds depth of flavour and extra alcohol to the punch.
Orange wine
Adds orange flavour and sweetness to the blend.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy, rum, orange, wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, rum, orange, wine. 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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