Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Cake

A moist cake flavored with orange rind and juice, filled with almond-orange butter mixture, and iced with orange-flavored icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Orange Cake

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Orange Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the cake

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

  2. Rub together the butter, flour, and sugar.

  3. Add the grated orange rind.

  4. Whisk the eggs and add them to the mixture.

  5. Finally, add the orange juice and mix well.

  6. Divide the batter into 4 well‑greased tins and bake for 1 hour.

Make the filling

  1. To make the filling, warm the butter and beat it with the sugar.

  2. Add the ground almonds, orange rind, cream, and enough orange juice to mix.

  3. Mix well before adding the cream, then gently add the strained juice.

Make the icing

  1. For the icing, sift the icing sugar through a wire sieve.

  2. Add the orange juice and enough boiling water to achieve a smooth consistency.

  3. Color the icing pale pink with 1 or 2 drops of carmine and spread evenly.

  4. Allow the icing to cool before using.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 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 richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and a rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Ground almonds
Add moisture and a tender, slightly dense crumb.
Orange juice
Adds moisture and bright citrus acidity and flavor.

The step that matters

Add the orange juice and enough boiling water to achieve a smooth consistency.. Icing sugar dissolves into a smooth, spreadable icing only when liquid is added gradually. Too much liquid makes it runny and too little leaves lumps, so add it slowly and check the texture.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, milk, almond, cream. 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.

More orange cake recipes

Filling 22Almond 6Pineapple 6Seville 4 See all 343 →

You might also like

Orange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipesOrange CustardOrange Custard56 recipes