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Dessert

Orange Cake

A moist cake flavored with orange juice and zest, topped with an orange‑flavored whipped filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Orange Cake

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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 batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the egg yolks and strain through a sieve after whipping.

  4. Mix in the orange juice, grated peel, cold water, and dissolved baking soda.

  5. Stir in the flour quickly to form a batter.

Bake and fill

  1. Pour the batter into jelly cake tins and bake until golden.

  2. For the filling, whisk the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Gradually add the powdered sugar and mix in the orange juice and grated peel.

  4. Spread the filling between the cooled cakes and reserve some for frosting.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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).

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
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the orange juice to make the cake rise.
Orange
Adds moisture, acidity and bright citrus aroma.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour quickly to form a batter. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to develop, so overmixing can make the cake tough and dense. Mixing just until combined keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the orange

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

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

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