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Dessert

Orange Cream

A chilled orange custard made with orange juice, sugar, egg yolks, cream, and isinglass, served in cups or molded.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Orange Cream

Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Squeeze and strain the juice of 11 oranges and sweeten with pounded loaf sugar.

  2. Heat the mixture over low heat until the sugar dissolves, skimming off any scum.

  3. Once cold, mix with the beaten yolks of 12 eggs and 1 pint of cream.

  4. Stir over low heat until thick, then serve in a glass dish or custard cups.

Make the isinglass version

  1. For another method, boil ¾ ounce of isinglass in ½ pint of water until reduced by half.

  2. Sweeten with pounded sugar, add the strained juice of 4 oranges and 1 lemon, and mix in the isinglass when nearly cold.

  3. Stir in 1 pint of whipped cream until it begins to thicken, then pour into a mold.

Make the orange-flower cream and finish

  1. For a different variation, sweeten 1 quart of cream, mix in a small wine-glass of orange-flower water, and the grated rind and juice of a Seville orange.

  2. Whisk until thick, soak macaroons in white wine, and pile them in the center of a dish, topping with the whipped cream.

  3. Decorate with slices of green citron cut into straws after a few hours.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Orange + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together730 recipes

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

  5. Cream + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they set during gentle heating.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a smooth, soft texture.
Isinglass
A gelatin-like setting agent that firms the orange mixture into a mold.
Orange juice
Provides acidity and flavour that balances the sugar in the custard.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the juice and adds body to the custard.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until thick. Egg yolks thicken at gentle temperatures but can curdle or scramble if overheated, so low heat and constant stirring keep the custard smooth.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream, lemon, white 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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