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 ↓
Citron 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until well combined.
Slowly stir in the milk.
Beat the egg whites until frothy and add them to the mixture.
Sift in the flour and baking powder, stirring until well mixed.
Assemble
In a cake pan, layer the batter, then a layer of citron, repeating until all ingredients are used.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 that makes the crumb tender and rich.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps hold moisture in the crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
- Egg whites
- Trap air when beaten, adding lightness and helping the cake set.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
- Citron
- Adds its own tart, citrusy flavor and chewy pieces throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Mix in the flour and baking powder until just combined. Once flour is added, stirring develops gluten in the batter. Overmixing makes the cake tough and dense, so stop as soon as the mixture is evenly combined.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, sugar, flour, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, flour, 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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