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Dessert

Lemon Gem Cakes

Lemon Gem Cakes are sweet cakes made with sugar, butter, lemon juice, milk, flour, eggs, soda, lemon extract, and optional dried fruit and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 39 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Lemon Gem Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream sugar and butter.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs, lemon juice, soda dissolved in sweet milk, lemon extract, and then the flour.

  3. Mix sugar, shortening, sour milk, raisins, currants, chopped walnuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and baking powder to a thick batter.

  4. Take a teaspoon and drop into baking pan.

  5. Mix brown sugar, shortening, eggs, sour milk, soda, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, flour to thicken, raisins, and nuts if desired.

  6. Drop into well greased pans.

  7. Mix together two cups sugar, one cup molasses, one cup pure lard softened, and two level teaspoonfuls soda dissolved in a cup of warm water.

  8. Add two well-beaten eggs, two teaspoonfuls cinnamon, one teaspoonful cloves, six cups flour, and one cup fruit (raisins, seeded, chopped English currants or chopped prunes).

Bake and serve

  1. Mix very soft, cut out with a cookie cutter and bake in floured tins in a medium hot oven.

  2. Bake in gem tins.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1285Calories
38 gProtein
51 gFat
174 gCarbs

Counts 15 of 16 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 15 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Sour Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Soda
Reacts with the sour milk to lift and lighten the cake.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the soda, helping the cakes rise.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cakes together.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep sweetness.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, lemon, milk, raisin, walnut, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, lemon, milk, raisin, walnut, cinnamon. 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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