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Dessert

Cream Cup Cakes

A light, orange-flavored cake baked in small, deep fluted pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Cup Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, grated rind, juice of orange, and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Mix and sift the flour, baking soda, and salt; add to the first mixture while beating constantly.

  4. Cut and fold in the beaten egg whites; blend well.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 minutes in a 350°F (175°C) oven in very small, deep, well-buttered fluted cake pans.

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.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 the sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture and structure to the batter.
Egg whites
Beaten stiff and folded in, they trap air and give the cakes lift.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cakes once baked.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the orange juice to help the cakes rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold trapped air that gives the cakes lift. Folding gently with a light hand keeps that air in; stirring vigorously deflates the batter and leaves dense cupcakes.

Swap the orange

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

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

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