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Dessert

Orange Cake

A cake made with egg whites, yolks, sugar, butter, water, flour, baking powder, orange rind, and orange juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Orange Cake

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, cold water, flour, baking powder, grated orange rind, and all but 1 tablespoon of the orange juice.

  4. If the batter is too stiff, add more orange juice.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Bake in two large square biscuit tins at 350°F (175°C).

  2. For the filling, beat the reserved egg whites with 1 tablespoon of orange juice and gradually add the powdered sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Egg whites
Beaten separately to trap air, giving the cake a light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness to the crumb and help bind the batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to add fat, softness and a tender texture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.
Orange juice
Adds moisture and bright citrus acidity and aroma to the cake.

The step that matters

Adding more orange juice to the batter. If the batter is too stiff, the cake may bake dense. Adding liquid gradually loosens it so the batter stays smooth and spreads evenly in the tins.

Swap the orange

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

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

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