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Dessert

Lemun Cheese Cake

A baked lemon-flavored cake with a lemon butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lemun 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and ½ cup butter.

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. Fold the egg whites into the sugar mixture gently.

  6. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then fold into the mixture.

  7. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Make the lemon sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine the grated lemon rind, lemon juice, egg yolks, ½ cup butter, and 1 cup sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.

Assemble

  1. Use the sauce like jelly between the layers of cake.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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
Whipped egg whites give the cake lift and an airy crumb, while yolks enrich the sauce.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and sauce and helps the sauce thicken and set.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the lemon sauce over low heat. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated. Low heat with constant stirring thickens the sauce gently and smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, flour, sauce. 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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