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 ↓
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 cake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the water and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.
Divide the batter into layers.
Bake the layers until golden.
Make the filling
For the filling, mix the egg yolk, orange juice, and powdered sugar together.
Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form.
Fold the beaten egg white into the orange mixture.
Spread the filling between the baked layers.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 give the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake batter.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and the whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten the filling.
- Orange juice
- Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma to the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, fine texture when creamed with butter.
The step that matters
Folding the beaten egg white into the orange mixture. Beaten egg white holds air in stiff peaks. Stirring it vigorously deflates the foam and makes the filling dense, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, 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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