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Dessert

Orange Cake

A moist orange-flavored cake with a stiff egg white icing.

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

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Orange 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, flour, water, egg yolks, orange juice, orange rind, baking powder, and salt until smooth.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold into the batter.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30‑35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix in orange juice, orange rind, and enough sugar to achieve a stiff consistency.

  3. Once the cake is cool, spread the icing on top.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + orangetop 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. Flour + orangetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,821 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and give the cake its airy rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture, and help bind the batter into a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
Orange juice and rind
Add acidity and bright citrus aroma to the cake and icing.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff egg whites trap air that makes the cake rise. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a dense cake, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, 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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