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Dessert

Orange Sauce

A custard dessert with sliced oranges, sugar, coconut, milk, egg, cornstarch, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the oranges

  1. Place sliced oranges in a pudding dish.

  2. Cover the oranges with ½ cup sugar.

  3. Sprinkle enough coconut over the sugar to cover well.

Make the custard

  1. Heat 1 pint of milk to near boiling.

  2. Add the beaten egg and cornstarch, stirring constantly.

  3. Let the custard boil briskly for 3-4 minutes until smooth.

  4. Pour the custard over the oranges in the dish.

Finish and serve

  1. Add a layer of coconut on top.

  2. Set aside to cool.

  3. Whip 1 pint of cream until stiff.

  4. Pour the whipped cream over the top of the custard.

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

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

  2. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Orange + coconuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges
Provide the fruit base and bright citrus flavour that the custard sits on.
Egg
Thickens and enriches the custard as it cooks, giving it a set, creamy body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard becomes smooth and holds its shape.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy topping when whipped to stiff peaks.
Sugar
Sweetens the oranges and draws out their juice as they sit.

The step that matters

Boil the custard briskly. Egg and cornstarch must reach a full boil to thicken fully and cook out the starch taste. Stirring constantly prevents the egg from scrambling onto the bottom of the pan.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Bananafits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, coconut, milk, 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.

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