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Dessert

Orange Cream

A custard dessert made with milk, orange juice, egg yolks, corn starch, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Orange Cream

Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Orange Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk and orange juice in a saucepan until boiling hot.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in a little cold milk and add it to the hot mixture.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with sugar until light and foam-like, then stir into the mixture.

  4. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Serve cold in custard cups or a glass dish.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Orange + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they set with gentle heat and add richness.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, sliceable cream as it heats.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the orange flavour and thickeners are added to.
Orange juice
Provides the citrus flavour and acidity that defines the dessert.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the mixture thickens, but do not let it boil. Egg yolks can curdle and turn grainy if overheated, and starch thickens fully only with heat. Stirring keeps heat even, and stopping before a boil keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, corn, 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.

More orange cream recipes

Pie 18Custard 17Pudding 10Ice 5Sauce 4Dessert 3 See all 99 →

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