Name: Lemon Butter Cake
Ingredients: 8 eggs; 3 cups sugar; 4½ cups flour; 1½ cups butter; 1 cup sweet milk; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 3 lemons; ¾ pound sugar (for filling); ½ pound butter (for filling)

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 Butter 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and gradually add the sugar, mixing well.
Add the flour, butter, sweet milk, and baking powder; mix until smooth.
Pour the batter into jelly cake tins and bake until golden.

Make the filling

For the filling, beat the yolks of three eggs with ¾ pound of sugar and ½ pound of butter.
Grate the rind of three lemons and add the juice to the mixture.
Cook the filling over low heat until it thickens.

Assemble

Once the cake layers are cool, spread the lemon filling between them.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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: Whipped with sugar to trap air, giving the cake its light structure.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the cake once its proteins set in the oven.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness to the cake and the lemon filling.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while giving the filling body.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes airy.
Lemons: Provide acidity and aroma to the filling, with the rind adding fragrance.

The step that matters

Cook the filling over low heat until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken and can scramble if overheated. Gentle, low heat lets the custard set smoothly while the lemon juice keeps it bright.

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

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

Lemon Cake228 recipes

Lemon Ice147 recipes

Lemon Sherbet103 recipes

Lemon Custard64 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Lemon Butter Cake