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 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.
Make the batter
Beat together the sugar and butter until well combined.
Add the sweet milk, cream of tartar, baking soda, egg whites, and flour, then mix until smooth.
Grate the pulp and rind of the oranges.
Add the grated pulp and rind to the batter along with the white sugar.
Bake and assemble
Divide the batter into four cake pans.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.
Spread the orange mixture between the layers of cake.
Frost the top and sides of the cake.
Optionally garnish with orange slices sprinkled with sugar.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
- Egg whites
- Provide structure and lift as they set in the oven.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the egg whites and helps the cake keep its rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with acidic ingredients to produce gas that lightens the crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set.
- Oranges
- Add acidity and bright orange aroma to the batter and filling.
The step that matters
Baking until golden. Baking too long dries out the cake's crumb, while too short a bake leaves the center wet and unset. Watching for golden color helps judge doneness.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, cream, egg, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, cream, egg, flour. 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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