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Dessert

Orange Souffle

A custard-based orange dessert with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,696 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Orange Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the yolks of 5 eggs with the granulated sugar.

  3. Beat the whites of 2 eggs with the granulated sugar.

  4. Gradually pour the hot milk over the egg mixture, stirring continuously.

  5. Return the mixture to the saucepan.

  6. Place the saucepan in a basin of boiling water.

  7. Stir until the mixture begins to thicken, about 2 minutes.

  8. Add a speck of salt.

  9. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Prepare the oranges

  1. Pare the oranges.

  2. Remove the seeds from the oranges.

  3. Cut the oranges finely.

  4. Place the oranges in a glass dish.

  5. Pour the cold custard over the oranges.

Finish

  1. Frost the custard with the remaining 3 egg whites and the powdered sugar.

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. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, and whites whipped with sugar form the light frosting.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the egg yolks set.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the custard and the egg whites.
Oranges
Provide the fruit, with their acidity and aroma, that the custard is poured over.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over boiling water until it just begins to thicken. Egg yolks set gently with heat. Stirring steadily and stopping once it starts to thicken keeps the custard smooth and prevents the eggs from scrambling or curdling.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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