Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Butter Filling

A sweet orange-flavored butter mixture used as a filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Butter Filling

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the egg yolk and whole egg, and mix well.

  3. Gradually beat in the sugar.

  4. Cook the mixture in a double boiler, stirring until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and mix in the grated orange rind and juice.

  6. Allow to 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. Butter + lemontop 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

Eggs
Thicken the filling as they cook, giving it a set, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the filling.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the tart citrus flavor.
Orange juice
Provides moisture and bright citrus acidity that flavors the filling.
Grated orange rind
Contributes fragrant orange aroma and oils that deepen the citrus flavor.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler, stirring until thickened. Eggs can curdle if they get too hot too fast. Gentle indirect heat, with constant stirring, lets the egg proteins thicken the mixture smoothly without scrambling.

Swap the orange

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

  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 egg, sugar, butter, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes