Name: Orange Cake
Ingredients: one-half cups sugar; three-fourths cup milk; one-fourth cups flour; one teaspoon lemon juice; ten eggs; one whole egg; three tea- spoonfuls baking powder; one-half orange

Why it works: Lemon and orange 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Beat yolks of ten eggs, one whole egg, one and one-half cups sugar, salt, three-eighths cup butter, three-fourths cup milk, three teaspoons baking powder, and two and one-fourth cups flour.

Bake

Bake in round tins.

Make the frosting and assemble

Make orange frosting by mixing juice of one-half orange, one teaspoon lemon juice, and confectioner's sugar to spread.
Put together with orange frosting.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

805Calories

29 gProtein

15 gFat

139 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 6 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Orange	1 medium (131g)	62
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Friday club, Yarmouth, Mass. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + teatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together610 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Tea + orangetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together333 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together738 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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: Yolks and whole eggs add structure and richness as the batter sets.
Flour: Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender.
Milk: Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.

Swap the orange

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits about as well
Orangethe original
Figfits about as well

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