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Dessert

Orange Cake

A moist cake flavored with orange and apple, topped with a jelly and frosting.

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

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

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and eggs, mixing well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, stirring until combined.

  5. Divide the batter into two or three greased jelly tins.

  6. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the orange jelly

  1. For the jelly, combine the orange juice, grated rind, grated apples, egg, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over low heat for a few minutes, stirring constantly until thickened.

Assemble and finish

  1. Spread the jelly between the baked cakes and frost the 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise.
Orange
Adds bright citrus flavour and acidity from the juice and rind.
Tart apples
Add moisture and a tart flavour to the jelly filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the orange jelly. The jelly contains egg and must be cooked over low heat while stirred constantly. Gentle heat lets the egg thicken smoothly without scrambling, and stirring prevents it from catching on the pan.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, egg, flour, apple. 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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