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Dessert

Orange Custard

A steamed custard made with egg yolks, icing sugar, orange juice, and grated orange rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Orange Custard

Why it works: Sugar and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and icing sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the orange juice and grated orange rind, mixing thoroughly.

Steam and cool

  1. Pour the mixture into individual dishes.

  2. Steam the dishes until the custard solidifies.

  3. Remove from the steamer and let cool.

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.

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.

  1. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + orangetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Egg yolks
Set the custard into a soft, creamy structure as they heat and coagulate.
Orange juice
Provides liquid and acidity, adding bright citrus flavour to the custard.
Icing sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves smoothly into the egg mixture.

The step that matters

Steam the dishes until the custard solidifies. Egg proteins set with gentle, even heat. Too much heat or steam that is too vigorous can make the custard grainy, cracked or watery, so watch it closely and remove it once it has just set.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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