Why it works: Butter and milk 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
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.
Make the batter
Cream butter and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy.
Beat the egg yolks until thick and light.
Add the beaten egg yolks to the butter mixture.
Add the milk.
Add the sifted flour mixed with baking soda, beating thoroughly after each addition.
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.
Add the grated lemon rind.
Add the lemon juice and mix until combined.
Bake and ice
Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cover with icing flavored with lemon juice after cooling.
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.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter into a smooth emulsion.
- Egg whites
- Whipped air folded in gives the cake lift and a light, open structure.
- All-purpose flour
- Its proteins set during baking to form the cake's main structure.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the batter's acidity to release gas, helping the cake rise.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and liquid so the flour hydrates and the batter loosens.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring vigorously deflates them, and the cake will bake up dense and flat instead of light.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, 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.
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