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Dessert

Lemon Layer Cake

A layered cake with lemon-flavored batter and lemon filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lemon Layer 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

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

  2. In a bowl, mix 1 cup sugar and the butter until well combined.

  3. Add 5 tablespoons of sweet milk and the beaten eggs, mixing thoroughly.

  4. Stir in the flour and baking powder until just combined.

  5. Divide the batter into four layers and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine the lemon rind, lemon juice, ¾ cup sugar, 1 tablespoon butter, and 1 egg in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring until thickened.

Assemble

  1. Once cool, spread the filling between the layers of cake.

  2. Frost the top if desired.

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.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the layers rise and turn light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
Lemon
Provides the acidic, bright flavor of the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the lemon filling until thickened. The egg and lemon juice thicken as the proteins in the egg set with gentle heat. Overcooking or too much heat can curdle the egg, so stir steadily over medium heat and remove it once it coats a spoon.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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