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Dessert

Lemon Honey Cake

A layer cake filled with a thick lemon honey made from sugar, butter, eggs and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Honey Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Rub the butter and sugar to a cream.

  2. Add the milk.

  3. Add the whites of eight eggs beaten to a stiff froth.

  4. Add the corn starch and flour, to which the baking powder has been added.

  5. Bake in jelly tins.

Make the lemon filling

  1. Put the sugar, lemon and butter into a saucepan and melt over a gentle fire.

  2. When all is dissolved, stir in the eggs which have been well beaten.

  3. Stir rapidly until it is as thick as honey.

Fill and store

  1. Spread this between the layers of cake.

  2. Set aside the remainder in a closely covered vessel for future use.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

845Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
124 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

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

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift, and beaten yolks and whole eggs help set the batter and filling.
Butter
Creams with the sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb and adds richness to the filling.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give a soft texture.
Lemons
Adds bright acidity and aroma that cut the sweetness of the filling.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs. Beaten eggs can scramble when they meet the hot sugar, lemon and butter mixture. Stir them in steadily while the mixture is over the gentle heat, and keep stirring as it thickens so the filling stays smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, corn, flour, 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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