Why it works: Milk and butter 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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Beat the butter until creamy.
Add the whipped egg whites and sugar, mixing well.
Combine cream of tartar with flour and baking soda with milk.
Mix all ingredients together and add lemon flavoring.
Bake
Pour the batter into greased tins.
Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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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).
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
- Eggs (whites)
- Whipped whites trap air, giving the cake lift and a light, open crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and gluten structure that sets the cake's body.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter, stabilising whipped egg whites and helping the leavening work.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.
The step that matters
Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whipped whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Mixing them too vigorously knocks that air out, so the cake bakes dense and flat.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, flour, egg, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, flour, egg, cream. 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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