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Dessert

Orange Cake

A layered cake with orange and lemon filling, topped with orange glaze.

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

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the tins

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

  2. Brush two 7‑inch sandwich tins with warmed butter and dust with a mixture of flour and caster sugar.

Make and bake the cakes

  1. Beat the eggs slightly, then add the sugar and water.

  2. Gradually mix in the flour.

  3. Stir in the baking soda and cream of tartar until smooth.

  4. Divide the mixture between the prepared tins and bake for 10‑15 minutes.

  5. Turn the cakes out onto a sieve to cool.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. Grate the peel of the orange and lemon, then press and strain their juices.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the grated peel, juice, water, and sugar, and bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in the arrowroot mixed with a little cold water and remove from heat.

  4. Once slightly cool, spread the filling on one cake, place the other cake on top, and let it set.

  5. Once set, cover the top with orange glace.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Flour + arrowroottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together525 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and lift to the cake crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure of the cake once set by the heat.
Arrowroot
Thickens the citrus filling into a glossy, sliceable set.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilising it and working with baking soda to lighten the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that raises the cake.
Orange
Supplies juice and peel for the bright, aromatic, tangy filling.

The step that matters

Stir in the arrowroot mixed with a little cold water and remove from heat. Arrowroot thickens only when heated and then cooled; stirring it into a boiling mixture and leaving it on the heat too long can thin or break the filling, so it should be removed from heat as soon as it thickens.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, cream, butter, lemon, arrowroot. 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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