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Dessert

Orange Cake

A cake with almonds, eggs, butter, flour, orange zest and juice, finished with a sweet glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Orange Cake

Why it works: Almond and flour 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 cake base

  1. Blanch the almonds and pound them with the egg white in a mortar.

  2. Mix in the powdered sugar, beaten eggs, and smooth hard-boiled yolks.

  3. Slice the butter into the flour, then add the almond mixture and enough milk to form a firm paste.

  4. Roll out the paste to ¼ inch thick and shape the edges with trimmings.

  5. Bake on buttered paper in a 350°F (175°C) oven until lightly browned.

Make the orange topping

  1. For the topping, beat the yolks of 4 eggs and 1 egg white.

  2. Rub the loaf sugar on the orange zest, crush it, and mix with the eggs.

  3. Add the strained orange juice and stir over heat until it thickens.

  4. Once nearly cool, mix in the powdered sugar and whisked egg whites.

Serve

  1. Before serving, arrange the orange quarters on the cake in a star shape.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Adds richness and tenderness to the paste, helping it hold together while baking.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake base together.
Eggs
Bind the paste and, as yolks and whites, thicken and set the orange topping.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and a tender, moist crumb to the base.
Orange juice
Supplies acidity and citrus flavour to the topping, which thickens with the eggs.

The step that matters

Stirring the orange topping over heat. Egg mixtures thicken as the proteins set, but if they get too hot they scramble. Stir gently and keep the heat moderate so the topping becomes smooth and thick.

Swap the orange

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

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

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