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Baking

Orange Short Cake

A cake made with sliced oranges, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, butter, milk, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Orange Short Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the oranges

  1. Slice the oranges very thin and cover them with 1⅓ cups sugar.

  2. Let stand for about an hour.

Make and bake the shortcake

  1. Make a rich biscuit dough with flour, baking powder, salt, butter, and enough milk and water to make a soft dough.

  2. Handle the dough as little as possible.

  3. Roll the dough into two sheets.

  4. Spread one sheet lightly with butter and place the other on top.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once baked, put the sweetened oranges between the layers and around the cake.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the shortcake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the biscuit dough rich and tender, and gives a layer of richness between sheets.
Oranges
Add acidity and fresh flavor, and moisture from their juice.
Sugar
Sweetens the oranges and draws out their juice as they stand.
Milk
Moistens the dough and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Handle the dough as little as possible. Overworking biscuit dough develops gluten, which makes the shortcake tough instead of tender. Light handling keeps the layers soft and flaky.

Swap the orange

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

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

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