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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the sweet milk and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.
Beat in the eggs one at a time until fully incorporated.
Bake and frost
Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake until golden.
For the frosting, grate the orange zest and mix it with the juice.
Add sugar to the orange mixture until it reaches a jelly‑like consistency.
Spread the frosting between the layers of the 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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Milk + flourtop 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
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps give it a tender texture and golden browning.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions and mixing only until smooth keeps the batter from overdeveloping gluten, which would make the cake tough. Overmixing after the flour goes in is the usual cause of a dense result.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, 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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