Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the milk.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, then gradually add them to the wet mixture.
Bake
Pour the batter into greased jelly tins and bake until golden.
Make the filling
For the filling, combine cold water, sugar, orange juice and grated rind in a pot over boiling water.
Once hot, add the beaten egg yolks and stir in the beaten egg white just before removing from heat.
Let the filling cool, then spread it between the layers of cake.
Frost and finish
Frost the top with the remaining egg white mixed with powdered sugar and orange juice.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Flour
- Forms the cake's main structure as its proteins set during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, lifting the cake so it rises and becomes light.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter and thicken the filling.
- Butter
- Creaming with sugar traps air and adds fat for a tender crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep it tender and moist.
- Oranges
- Supply juice and rind that add bright acidity and citrus aroma to the filling and frosting.
The step that matters
Adding the eggs to the hot filling. Egg proteins thicken the filling as they warm, but if the mixture gets too hot the eggs scramble and turn grainy. Stir the beaten eggs in gently and remove the pot from the heat at the right moment.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, butter, egg, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, egg, 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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