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 ↓
Floating Island
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cream
Mix the cream, raisin wine, lemon juice, orange flower water, and sugar in a dish.
Make the froth
Prepare a froth by scalding the apple, pulping it through a sieve, and mixing it with beaten egg whites and sugar.
Add the orange flower water to the froth mixture and beat until frothy.
Serve
Serve the froth on top of the cream or a custard, optionally coloring it with beetroot or jelly.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Orange + appletop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Wine + appletop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,207 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,684 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
- Thin cream
- Forms the rich, creamy base that the light froth sits on.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that traps air and gives the froth its light structure.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dish and helps the egg white foam hold its shape.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream and balances the sweetness.
- Raisin wine
- Adds fruity, wine-like flavour to the cream base.
- Orange flower water
- Adds a floral aroma to the cream and the froth.
The step that matters
Beating the froth. Beaten egg whites trap air, and sugar helps the foam hold its shape. Beat until the froth is light and holds its shape. Under-beaten foam slumps into the cream, while over-beaten whites turn grainy and collapse.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, wine, lemon, orange, sugar, egg, apple):
- Vanillafits better
- Blackberryfits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, wine, lemon, orange, sugar, egg, apple. 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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