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Dessert

Orange Cake

A layered cake with orange flavored batter and a citrus filling, finished with orange icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Orange Cake

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 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 batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gradually add the powdered sugar and then the egg yolks, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the flour and corn starch until just combined.

  5. Pour in the hot melted butter and beat until smooth.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Pour the batter into three well-buttered jelly pans and bake immediately.

  2. For the filling, mix the egg yolks, sugar, and corn starch to a cream.

  3. Add the orange juice, lemon juice, and water, then cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until it boils.

Assemble and ice

  1. Spread the filling on two layers of cake, stack them, and top with the third layer.

  2. Ice the top with soft orange icing.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Corn + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Eggs
Whites whipped to stiff peaks give the cake its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves easily into the whipped eggs.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb and thickens the filling when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Oranges
Supply the juice and zest that give the cake and filling their citrus flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until it boils. Corn starch only thickens fully when heated to a boil, and stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

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

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