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Dessert

Lemon Butter

A moist cake made with lemon rind, lemon juice, eggs, raisins, suet, molasses, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Lemon Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon mixture

  1. Grate the rind of 2 lemons.

  2. Juice 3 lemons.

  3. Beat the eggs until very light.

  4. Mix the lemon rind, lemon juice, and beaten eggs together.

  5. Boil the mixture until thick.

Combine and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, combine baking powder, raisins, suet, flour, molasses, and milk.

  2. Add salt, cloves, and cinnamon to taste.

  3. Combine the thick lemon mixture with the dry ingredients. Mix well.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set with heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become lighter.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep color and flavor to the cake.
Suet
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps thicken the lemon mixture.

The step that matters

Boil the lemon mixture until thick. Heating beaten eggs with lemon juice thickens them as the egg proteins set. Heat that is too high or too long can overcook the eggs and make the mixture grainy or curdled, so watch it closely and stop once it thickens.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, raisin, flour, molasses, milk, clove, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, raisin, flour, molasses, milk, clove, cinnamon. 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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