Skip to main content
Baking

Lemon Filling

A creamed butter, sugar and flour cake flavoured with lemon essence and baking powder, with a preserved ginger variation.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lemon Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon filling

  1. Make the lemon filling: stir the rind and juice of lemon, butter, water, sugar and corn flour over the fire until it boils.

  2. Take off the fire, and when pretty cool drop in two yolks of eggs and beat well.

Make the cake batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar, add the flour and eggs (well beaten) with the milk.

  2. Mix all and beat well.

  3. Add the essence, and last the baking powder.

  4. Keep the flour very dry and free from lumps.

  5. Beat eggs together very lightly.

  6. Add eggs and flour alternately.

  7. Mix and beat thoroughly.

  8. A little ground ginger sieved with the flour is an improvement.

  9. For a ginger version, add 2 cupfuls of preserved ginger and 1 tablespoonful of the syrup.

Bake

  1. Put in a buttered and lined cake tin and bake in a moderate oven.

  2. Do not bake too quickly.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1142Calories
33 gProtein
41 gFat
159 gCarbs

Counts 11 of 13 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Corn1/2 cup kernels (82g)77
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Syrupnot in our table0
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.

By Hamilton, Margaret. 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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Ginger + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 and richness as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness and carries flavour through the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake crumb once baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and becomes light.
Preserved ginger
Adds sweet, spicy pieces and aroma to the ginger version.

The step that matters

Beat the butter and sugar to a cream. Beating creams air into the fat, which gives the batter lift before the baking powder works. Under-beaten butter and sugar bake into a dense, heavy cake.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, butter, syrup, sugar, corn, 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.

You might also like

Cornmeal Griddle CakesCornmeal Griddle Cakes24 recipesCorn Breakfast CakesCorn Breakfast Cakes20 recipesDelicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipes