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Dessert

Lemon Cake

A layered lemon cake with a lemon filling, made from sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, eggs, butter, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Lemon Cake

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 Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cake batter

  1. Separate the whites from the yolks of three eggs.

  2. Beat the whites very stiff.

  3. Add one whole egg and one scant cup butter, and cream well into two cups sugar, one cup milk, three and one-fourth cups flour, and two teaspoons Royal Baking Powder sifted into the flour.

  4. Flavor with vanilla.

  5. Mix and bake in three layers.

Make the lemon filling

  1. Grate the rind of one lemon and squeeze the juice.

  2. Combine grated rind, juice, one cup sugar, and butter the size of an egg.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until it resembles custard.

  4. Let cool and spread on the cake layers as deep as desired, or use all.

  5. If the lemon is small, use two rinds instead of one.

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 United Methodist Church (Grayville, 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.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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 beaten stiff add lift and an airy structure to the batter.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once mixed with the liquids and eggs.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Royal baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the layers.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma to the cooked custard filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the lemon custard in a double boiler. Gentle indirect heat lets the eggs and sugar thicken smoothly; direct high heat can curdle or scorch the mixture.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, flour, egg, butter. 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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