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Dessert

Orange Filling

A sweet orange custard made with sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, orange juice, boiling water, lemon juice, butter, and orange rind.

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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, egg yolks, and cornstarch.

  2. Stir in orange juice and boiling water.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and add lemon juice, butter, and grated orange rind. Mix well and let cool before using.

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

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

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Add richness and help thicken the filling as they set with heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, glossy filling when heated.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the tartness of the citrus.
Orange juice
Provides the main orange flavor and liquid for the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the citrus flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking until thickened. Cornstarch needs to reach a simmer and be stirred constantly to swell and thicken evenly; stopping early leaves the filling thin, while overheating or not stirring can scorch or clump it.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon, butter. 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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