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 ↓
Golden 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).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.
Make and bake the batter
Stir in the lemon zest and flour.
Dissolve the sal volatile in hot water and add it to the mixture, beating well.
Just before baking, mix in the lemon juice thoroughly.
Pour the batter into square, flat pans and bake until golden.
Finish
Once cooled, ice the cake thickly and cut into square pieces.
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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Flour + sugartop 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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, fat and emulsifying power, helping bind the batter and deepen color and flavor.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as the batter sets in the oven.
- Sugar
- Creams with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and tender browning.
- Sal volatile
- Acts as a leavening agent, releasing gas in the batter to help the cake rise.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity and bright lemon flavor to the batter.
The step that matters
Adding the lemon juice just before baking. Lemon juice is acidic and can react with the leavening once mixed in, so it should go in just before the batter enters the oven to keep the rise strong and the crumb light.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, 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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