Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Beat the sugar, butter, and egg yolks together for a long time.
Gradually add the flour to the mixture.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.
Add the lemon juice, lemon rind, currants, and baking powder, mixing gently.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden brown.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
- Eggs
- Egg yolks add richness and whites, beaten stiff, lighten the batter for a tender crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed batter hold air.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises.
- Lemon rind
- Adds aromatic lemon oils that give the cake its fragrance.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that lightens the cake. Folding gently preserves that air; vigorous stirring deflates it and leads to a dense cake.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, lemon):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, lemon. 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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