Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 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).
In a bowl, mix sweet milk, flour, baking powder, and the yolks of 5 eggs.
Grate the rind of 2 oranges into the batter and mix well.
Pour the batter into jelly pans and bake until golden.
Frost and assemble
For the frosting, beat the whites of 2 eggs until stiff, then gradually add sugar and orange juice.
Spread the frosting between the layers of the cooled 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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 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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Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,696 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich the batter and whites whipped stiff give the frosting its light structure.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and gluten that form the cake's structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the frosting and helps it hold its body when whipped with egg whites.
- Orange juice
- Adds bright acidity and citrus flavour to the frosting.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and tenderness to the batter.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks to trap air, which gives the frosting volume. Underwhipped whites stay runny, while overwhipped whites turn grainy and collapse. Adding sugar gradually stabilises the foam.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, sugar. 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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