Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Cream

A chilled dessert made from Seville orange rinds, Cognac, powdered sugar, egg yolks, and boiling cream.

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

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Orange Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavouring

  1. Cut the rinds off the Seville oranges.

  2. Boil the rinds until tender.

  3. Beat the rinds into a paste in a mortar and moisten with Cognac.

  4. Strain the juice of the oranges through a sieve.

Make the cream

  1. Mix the orange juice with powdered sugar and egg yolks for 10-12 minutes.

  2. Slowly add the boiling cream and stir until cold.

  3. Fill glasses and keep in a cool place until serving.

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

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

  2. Orange + cognac brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Orange and sugar 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
Thicken the cream and give it a rich, smooth body as they set gently.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cream and dissolves easily into the juice and yolks.
Boiling cream
Provides the fat and body that make the finished cream rich and smooth.
Seville oranges
Supply the juice and bitter aromatic peel that flavour the cream.

The step that matters

Slowly add the boiling cream. Adding hot cream too fast can scramble the egg yolks. Pouring it slowly while stirring warms the yolks gradually so the mixture stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cognac brandy, sugar, egg, cream. 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 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes