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 Cheese 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 batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the sweet milk and mix well.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Fold the egg whites into the batter mixture.
Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the batter.
Make the lemon filling
In a saucepan, combine the lemon juice, lemon rind, and egg yolks.
Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened like jelly.
Assemble
Use the lemon mixture as a filling between the cake layers.
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.
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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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Flour + sugartop 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
- Egg whites
- Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air that lightens the batter and helps it rise.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar, it adds fat that gives the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise.
- Egg yolks
- Cooked with lemon, they thicken the filling and give it a smooth, set texture.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity and bright flavor to the lemon filling.
The step that matters
Cooking the lemon filling over low heat. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if heated too quickly. Gentle heat with constant stirring lets them thicken smoothly as the proteins set.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, egg, flour, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, flour, 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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