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Dessert

Orange Cake

A moist cake flavored with orange rind and juice, topped with an orange-flavored frosting.

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

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl.

  3. Add the water, flour, egg whites, egg yolks, orange rind, orange juice, and baking powder. Mix well.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  5. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make and spread the frosting

  1. For the frosting, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

  2. Gradually add sugar until stiff peaks form, then mix in the orange rind and juice.

  3. Spread the frosting over the cooled cake.

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. 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. Flour + eggtop 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
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, fine-grained crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter, and whipped stiff they make the frosting.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when whipped with egg whites, stabilises the frosting.

The step that matters

Gradually add sugar to the egg whites for the frosting. Adding sugar slowly while beating lets the foam hold a stiff, glossy structure. Adding it all at once or with leftover fat or yolk can keep the whites from reaching stiff peaks.

Swap the orange

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

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