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 ↓
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).
In a bowl, mix 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons melted butter, and 1 cup milk.
Dissolve ½ teaspoon baking soda in the milk mixture.
In another bowl, combine 1½ cups flour and 1 teaspoon cream of tartar.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix until smooth.
Bake
Pour the batter into layer cake tins and bake until golden.
Make the filling and assemble
For the filling, mix the juice and rind of 1 orange with 1 cup sugar.
Spread the orange filling between the layers of the cake.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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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).
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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep it tender and moist.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich flavor.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter moisture.
- Baking soda
- Releases gas when it reacts with an acid, helping the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that reacts with the baking soda to aid rising.
The step that matters
Gradually adding the dry ingredients and mixing until just smooth. Overmixing flour develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. The baking soda starts reacting once wet, so the batter should go into the tins and the oven without delay.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, cream. 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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