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Dessert

Preparation of Layer Cake

A layered cake with orange filling and frosting made from butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and orange zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Preparation of Layer 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  4. Stir in the grated orange rind and milk.

  5. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then fold into the mixture.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Make the filling and frosting

  1. For the orange filling, combine sugar, flour, beaten eggs, grated orange rind, orange juice, and lemon juice in a bowl.

  2. Cook the filling over low heat until thickened, stirring constantly.

  3. For the orange frosting, mix orange juice, lemon juice, grated orange rind, egg yolk, and enough confectioners' sugar to achieve a spreadable consistency.

Assemble

  1. Once the cake is cooled, layer with orange filling and top with orange frosting.

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.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 gives the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set and bind.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay tender.

The step that matters

Cook the orange filling over low heat. The filling contains beaten eggs, which can scramble if overheated. Low heat and constant stirring let the eggs and flour thicken it smoothly.

Swap the orange

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

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

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