Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Orange Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the sweet milk and eggs, mixing well.
Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the wet mixture.
Bake and fill
Divide the batter into three layers and bake until golden.
For the filling, mix the grated orange zest with the juice and add sugar until thick.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, traps air for a light crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and holds air when creamed with sugar.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Orange zest and juice
- Add bright citrus aroma and acidity to the cake and filling.
The step that matters
Gradually adding the flour mixture. Adding the dry ingredients gradually and mixing only until combined keeps the batter smooth and limits gluten development, which would otherwise make the cake tough.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour. 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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