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Dessert

Orange Meringue Cake

A layered cake soaked in wine or custard, topped with orange yolk filling and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,046 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Meringue Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the cake

  1. Soak the round slice of cake with wine, milk, or custard.

  2. Layer the soaked cake on top of a second slice of unsoaked cake on a baking tin.

Make the filling and meringue

  1. Prepare the orange mixture using the yolks of the eggs.

  2. Whip the egg whites with sugar and essence of orange or grated rind.

  3. Spread the orange mixture on top of the cake, piling it slightly in the center.

  4. Top with the meringue mixture and place in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 10 minutes until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with cream or custard.

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.

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. Wine + orangetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

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

  5. Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Sponge cake
Forms the base layers that hold the soaking liquid and filling.
Wine, milk, or custard
Soaks into the cake, adding moisture so the base stays tender.
Egg yolks
Thicken the orange mixture into a rich, set filling.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilize the whipped whites.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites for the meringue. Whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks; any trace of fat or yolk can stop them foaming, and underwhipped whites will weep or collapse in the oven.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, 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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