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Dessert

Orange Cake

A light cake made with egg yolks, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, orange zest and juice, topped with a powdered sugar frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Orange Cake

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Orange Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs with 1 cup of granulated sugar until creamy.

  2. Add the beaten whites of 2 eggs. Mix well.

  3. Alternately add ½ cup of milk and 1½ cups of sifted flour mixed with 1½ teaspoons of baking powder. Beat well.

  4. Pour into prepared pans.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 7 to 10 minutes, or until a straw comes out clean.

  2. Beat the whites of 2 eggs to a stiff froth. Gradually add 1 cup of powdered sugar.

  3. Mix in the grated rind and juice of 1 orange until thick and creamy.

  4. Spread the filling on the hot cake. Reserve some filling for frosting.

Frost

  1. Add about ½ cup of powdered sugar to the reserved filling to harden for frosting.

  2. Ice the top and sides of the cake.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 yolks
Add richness and structure to the batter while helping it set.
Egg whites
Beaten to a stiff froth, they trap air and give the cake and filling lift.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps trap air when beaten with the yolks.
Orange rind and juice
Add citrus aroma and acidity to the filling.

The step that matters

Baking the cake. Baking time is short at a high heat, so the cake can brown or dry out quickly. Check for doneness with a straw at the earliest time, because overbaking makes the crumb dry and tough.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, 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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