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Dessert

Orange Cake

A layered cake made with powdered sugar, flour, sweet milk, butter, eggs, baking powder, orange rind, orange juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Orange Cake

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix powdered sugar, flour, sweet milk, butter, whole egg, egg yolk, and baking powder until smooth.

  3. Divide the batter into three layers and bake until golden.

Make the orange filling

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg white until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold in the grated orange rind, orange juice, and sugar.

Assemble

  1. Spread the orange mixture between the baked layers as you would jelly.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Walnut + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Egg white
Beaten to stiff peaks, it lightens the orange filling with trapped air.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the baked layers together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and stay light.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the layers.
Orange juice
Adds bright acidity and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg white to stiff peaks. Egg white foam traps air and gives the filling its lightness. Under-beaten whites stay runny and will not hold volume, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy, so the foam should stand in firm peaks before folding.

Swap the orange

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

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

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