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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Make the batter
Add the flour and milk, mixing until smooth.
Grate the rind of the oranges into the mixture and add part of the juice.
Strain the remaining juice into a bowl with 1 pound of sugar.
Beat the reserved egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Fold the beaten egg whites into the cake batter gently.
Bake and assemble
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.
Once cooled, spread icing between the layers as you would for a mountain cake.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Eggs
- Whipped whites trap air, giving the cake lightness and structure as it bakes.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it sets.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and contributes richness and flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep it tender and moist, and aids browning.
- Milk
- Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and gives the batter a smooth, pourable texture.
- Oranges
- Zest adds aromatic oil and juice adds moisture and bright, slightly acidic flavour.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Folding keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites intact. Stirring vigorously knocks out that air, so the cake rises less and turns out denser.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, milk, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, 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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