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 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add to the mixture.
Gradually stir in the sifted flour.
Finally, add the grated lemon peel and lemon juice.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into two shallow baking tins.
Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let cool, then ice with lemon icing and cut into squares.
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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, fine crumb when creamed with butter.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
- Eggs
- Provide structure and set the crumb, while adding richness and moisture.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidity in the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise and brown.
- Sifted flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity and bright lemon aroma, and reacts with the baking soda to help the rise.
The step that matters
Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add to the mixture. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and mixed in evenly so it reacts with the batter's acid to release gas. Clumps can leave bitter spots and uneven rising.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, 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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