Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓
Lemon Queen-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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Mix the salt and baking soda with the flour.
Make the batter
Beat the butter until light and creamy, then add the lemon rind.
Gradually beat in half of the sugar.
Beat the egg yolks, then the egg whites, and combine them.
Add the remaining sugar to the egg mixture and beat well.
Incorporate the butter and sugar mixture into the flour, stirring gently.
Gradually add the egg mixture, mixing steadily until combined.
Finally, add the lemon juice and mix until bubbles form.
Bake
Fill buttered cake tins and bake until golden.
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.
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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Flour + buttertop 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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it sets.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a tender texture, and carries flavour through the batter.
- Eggs
- Yolks add richness and help set the crumb, while beaten whites trap air for lift.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cake, softens the crumb, and helps the surface brown as it bakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the lemon juice to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
- Lemon juice
- Adds bright acidity and flavour, and its acid activates the baking soda.
The step that matters
Stirring gently when folding the butter and sugar mixture into the flour. Once flour is mixed with liquid, gluten begins to form. Stirring gently and only until combined keeps the cake tender, while vigorous overmixing makes it tough.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, egg. 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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