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Dessert

Oeange Cake

A cake of flour, corn starch, baking powder, lemon and vanilla extracts, butter, sugar, milk, egg whites, topped with orange‑flavored meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Oeange Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Sift together the flour, corn starch, baking powder, lemon extract, and vanilla extract.

  3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  4. Add the milk and half of the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar, stirring well.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

  6. Add the remaining flour mixture and mix until just combined.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake until golden.

  2. For the jelly, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

  3. Fold in the orange juice and pulp, then pile the meringue on top of 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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb by diluting the gluten in the flour, giving a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the batter rise and become light.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and a tender texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to add airy lift and set the structure of the cake.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to aerate the batter and add sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites under-whipped won't hold air and the cake will be dense; over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy and fold in poorly. Fold gently to keep the air.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, corn, vanilla, butter, sugar, milk, 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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