Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Cake

A cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, butter, sweet milk, baking powder, orange rind, and orange juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Orange Cake

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.

Prepare the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the flour, butter, sweet milk, and baking powder; mix until smooth.

  4. Divide the batter into layers and bake until golden.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the sugar.

  2. Fold in the grated orange rind and juice.

  3. Spread the filling between the layers and sprinkle the top layer lightly with sugar.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Whole eggs beaten with sugar trap air and give the cake its structure and lift.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its body and holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and stay light.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the orange filling a light, airy texture.
Oranges
Rind and juice add aroma and bright acidity that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks before the sugar is added gradually; under-beaten whites stay loose and the filling will not hold its airy texture, while adding sugar too early can slow foaming.

Swap the orange

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

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

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