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Dessert

Egyptian-wheat

A lemon cake made with sugar, eggs, flour, soda, and lemon zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Egyptian-wheat

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and water together until they form a thick syrup; let it cool slightly.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the eggs until very stiff, then pour the syrup into the eggs and mix well.

  2. Continue beating the mixture for a few minutes.

  3. Grate the lemon rind and mix the carbonate of soda with the flour.

  4. Stir the flour mixture lightly into the egg and syrup mixture, then add the lemon juice.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered mold and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for just over 1 hour.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Whisked until stiff, they trap air that gives the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Its starch and gluten set during baking to give the cake its crumb structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, boiled into syrup, adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the acid and heat to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Lemon
Its juice adds acidity and its rind adds fragrant aroma to the batter.

The step that matters

Stir the flour mixture in lightly. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten and deflates the whisked eggs, producing a tough, dense cake instead of a light one.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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