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Dessert

American Lemon Cake

A moist lemon cake with a lemon filling made from sugar, water, and lemon zest and juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

American 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 cake layers

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the eggs and sugar together for about 10 minutes.

  3. Sift in the flour and add the cold water alternately.

  4. Add the baking powder and mix well.

  5. Divide the batter into three layers and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine 1 cup sugar, hot water, and lemon in a saucepan.

  2. Mix in the beaten egg and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the cornstarch and boil again until thickened.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling between the baked layers.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Beaten with sugar to trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Forms the batter's main structure once set by baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the batter stay tender and golden as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and aroma to the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon filling as it boils, so it holds between the layers.

The step that matters

Boil the filling until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil, and the beaten egg can curdle if it is added to very hot liquid too quickly. Stir while boiling so the filling thickens smoothly before it is spread.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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