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 the batter
Separate the eggs and beat the whites until stiff.
Cream the butter with 1 cup of sugar.
Squeeze the orange juice over the other cup of sugar and add it to the butter and sugar mixture.
Add the egg yolks and milk mixed with baking soda.
Incorporate the flour mixed with cream of tartar, then fold in the beaten egg whites.
Bake and assemble
Pour the batter into jelly pans and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.
For the filling, mix ½ pound of powdered sugar with the juice of one orange, juice of one lemon, and 2 egg whites.
Layer the cake with the filling and top with a thick layer of powdered 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.
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + milktop 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
- Eggs
- Whipped whites give the cake lift and an airy, light crumb.
- Butter
- Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender texture.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and gluten structure that sets the cake's crumb.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter and stabilizes whipped egg whites for better rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize its crumb and brown the surface.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring rather than folding deflates the whites' trapped air, so the cake bakes up dense instead of light and airy.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, milk, cream, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, milk, cream, sugar. 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.
More orange cake recipes
You might also like
Orange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes
Orange Gelatin100 recipes
Orange Sherbet73 recipes
Orange Custard56 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.