Why it works: Almond and orange 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
Prepare
Peel and chop the hard-boiled eggs.
Make the mixture
In a bowl, beat the eggs with sugar, butter, and almond paste until smooth.
Moisten the mixture with orange-flower water to your taste.
Serve
Rub the mixture through a colander onto a serving dish.
Serve with sweet biscuits.
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.
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Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,125 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 eggs
- Provide the body and rich, set texture that the mixture is built on.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a smooth, creamy texture and rich mouthfeel.
- Fine sugar
- Sweetens the mixture and helps it turn smooth when beaten.
- Blanched almonds
- Contribute nutty flavour and a fine, paste-like body.
The step that matters
Beating until smooth. Eggs, butter and almond paste must be worked until fully combined; if the mixture stays lumpy, it will not pass cleanly through the colander and the texture will be grainy.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, almond):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- 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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