Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Orange Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar thoroughly, then add the egg yolks and re-cream.
Grate the orange rind carefully, using only the outer oil cells, and add it to the creamed mixture.
Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together three times.
Take 3 tablespoons of the sifted mixture and add it to the creamed mixture, then cream well.
Add the remaining flour and baking powder alternately with the orange juice to the creamed mixture.
Beat the mixture well before placing it in pans for baking.
Bake and fill
Bake in two layers and fill with orange cream filling or cold icing made with orange juice.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and moisture, and help bind the batter into a tender structure.
- Sugar
- Creamed with butter for aeration and adds sweetness that aids browning.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Orange juice
- Adds moisture and orange flavour, and gives the batter its liquid for mixing.
The step that matters
Adding the flour and orange juice alternately. Alternating small additions keeps the batter smooth and emulsified. Adding everything at once can overmix the flour, developing gluten and producing a tough, dense cake.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sugar, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, 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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