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Dessert

Orange Cake

A moist orange-flavored cake made with butter, sugar, egg yolks, orange zest, juice, flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Orange Cake

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Orange Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually beat in the granulated sugar.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs, grated orange rind, and orange juice.

  4. In another bowl, mix the pastry flour, cornstarch, and baking powder.

  5. Stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture.

  6. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Sprinkle with chopped almonds if desired.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 in flavor.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter, helping it set into a tender structure.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they lift the batter and give the cake its airy structure.
Pastry flour
Provides the structure of the cake while staying tender because of its lower protein.
Cornstarch
Softens the crumb by diluting the flour's gluten, giving a finer, more delicate texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whites. Stirring or overmixing deflates the batter, which leads to a dense, flat cake.

“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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