Name: Delicious Orange Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 3 cups sugar; 4 cups flour; 5 eggs; 1 cup milk; Juice and rind of 2 oranges; 2 eggs; 1 cup sugar (for jelly)

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 ↓

Delicious 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the butter and 3 cups of sugar.
Beat the 5 eggs separately; add the yolks to the butter and sugar mixture.
Gradually add the flour and milk, mixing until smooth.
Pour the batter evenly into layer‑cake tins.

Make the orange jelly

For the jelly, combine the juice and rind of 2 oranges, 2 eggs, and 1 cup of sugar in a saucepan.
Boil the mixture until it jellies, then let it cool slightly.

Assemble the cake

Spread the jelly evenly between the cake layers.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Butter: Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb.
Eggs: Yolks and whites add structure and richness, setting the cake as it bakes.
Flour: Forms the structure of the cake once its proteins set in the oven.
Milk: Adds moisture to the batter and helps it blend into a smooth mix.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture and golden colour.
Orange juice and rind: Adds acidity and citrus aroma, and the juice helps the jelly set when boiled.

The step that matters

Boiling the orange jelly. The mixture must be boiled long enough for the eggs and sugar to thicken into a jelly, but not so long that it scrambles or over-thickens. Eggs begin to set around 160°F, so gentle, attentive heat keeps the filling smooth.