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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the flavourings
Soak the thinly peeled orange rind in the lemon juice for at least one hour.
Make the cake
Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the egg yolks one at a time, beating for ten minutes.
Strain the lemon juice and add it to the mixture.
Stir in the flour and mix thoroughly.
Dissolve the baking soda in 1 tablespoon of hot water and add it to the batter.
Pour the batter into a flat cake pan and bake until done.
Ice the cake
For icing, mix 1 lb icing sugar with the orange juice and thinly peeled lemon rind soaked in orange juice for one hour.
Spread the icing over the cake when it is slightly cool.
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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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Flour and butter 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 sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and structure, helping bind the batter and set during baking.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic lemon juice to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
The step that matters
Adding the baking soda. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and mixed evenly into the batter. Lumps leave bitter, soapy pockets and uneven rising, since it only lifts the cake when it meets the acid in the lemon juice.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, lemon):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, lemon. 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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