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Dessert

Foamy Orange Sauce

A light, frothy orange sauce made with orange rind, sugar, butter, egg white, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Foamy Orange Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Add enough boiling water to the orange juice to make a total of ¼ cup liquid.

  2. In a small saucepan, mix the sugar and cornstarch.

  3. Pour in the liquid and stir constantly over heat until boiling and clear.

  4. Remove from heat and add the butter.

Fold in the egg white

  1. Whisk the egg white until stiff.

  2. Fold the stiff egg white into the sauce along with the grated rind.

  3. Return the sauce to a warm part of the stove.

  4. Gently fold until it begins to puff up.

  5. Serve.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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. Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

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

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 white
Whisked stiff and folded in, it aerates the sauce so it turns light and foamy.
Cornstarch
Thickens the orange liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce when heated.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps balance the tartness of the orange.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Orange juice
Provides the main citrus flavor and liquid for the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the cornstarch mixture until boiling. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the liquid reaches a boil, and it can scorch or clump if stirred too little. Constant stirring keeps it smooth and lets the starch gelatinize evenly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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