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
In a bowl, break the yolks of the eggs and add the sugar, butter, and orange juice. Beat until light and creamy.
Add the milk and the beaten egg whites.
Sift the flour with the baking soda and cream of tartar, then fold it into the mixture.
Bake
Pour the batter into four deep jelly-cake pans.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Eggs
- Yolks add richness and moisture, while whipped whites add air and structure.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and gluten that give the cake its structure.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that helps the baking soda react and stabilizes the egg whites.
The step that matters
Fold in the flour gently. Folding keeps the beaten egg whites full of air. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out and develops gluten, leaving the cake dense and tough.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, flour, milk, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, milk, 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.
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