Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Savoy 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
Weigh the eggs and use the same weight in dried flour and a little more than half that weight in sifted sugar.
Separate the egg yolks from the whites.
Butter a mold and dust it with powdered sugar, shaking off the excess.
Tie a strip of buttered paper around the top of the mold to prevent the batter from rolling down.
Make the batter
Beat the yolks in a bowl.
Gradually add the sugar, lemon rind, and flavoring to the yolks while beating.
Add the flour a little at a time and continue beating for 20 minutes.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into the mold, filling it three-quarters full.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Let the cake stand for a few minutes, then shake it to loosen and turn it out carefully.
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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Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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
- Eggs
- Beaten yolks trap air and set with heat, giving the cake its structure and rise.
- Flour
- Its proteins set during baking, giving the cake its firm crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
The step that matters
Add the flour a little at a time and continue beating for 20 minutes. Beaten egg foam holds the air that makes the cake rise. Adding flour gradually while beating keeps the batter light and evenly mixed, so the cake does not turn out dense.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, sugar, lemon, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, lemon, butter. 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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