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Dessert

Lemon Cake

A lemon-flavored frosting made from confectioner's sugar, lemon juice, and a corn starch slurry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Cake

Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cornstarch base

  1. Dissolve corn starch in cold water.

  2. Add boiling water and salt, then boil for several minutes.

Finish the frosting

  1. In a deep bowl, combine confectioner's sugar and lemon juice.

  2. Add corn starch mixture by the teaspoon until it forms a spreadable paste.

  3. Use this frosting on any cake; it will remain soft.

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.

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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Corn starch
Thickens the liquid into a cooked paste that gives the frosting body and keeps it soft.
Confectioner's sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, forming the main body of the frosting.
Lemon juice
Adds tartness and flavor, and liquefies the sugar into a spreadable consistency.

The step that matters

Add the cornstarch mixture gradually. Cornstarch thickens quickly once cooked, and adding too much at once can make the frosting stiff or lumpy. Adding it by the teaspoon lets you stop when the frosting reaches a spreadable paste.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar. 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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