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Dessert

Lemon Jelly Cake, No. 2

A baked cake topped with lemon jelly made from grated rind, juice, sugar, egg, water, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Jelly Cake, No. 2

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

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the baking powder and flour, then gradually add to the creamed mixture.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Make the lemon jelly

  1. For the jelly, combine the grated lemon rind, lemon juice, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, and ½ cup water in a saucepan.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon butter and bring to a boil, stirring constantly until it thickens.

  3. Mix 1 tablespoon flour with a little water and add to the jelly to thicken further if needed.

Assemble

  1. Once the cake is baked and cooled, spread the lemon jelly on top.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give it a light, tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, binding the batter and helping it set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour to the jelly.

The step that matters

Thickening the lemon jelly. The egg and flour thicken the jelly as it heats, but they can curdle or lump if boiled too hard or added without being smoothed first. Stirring constantly keeps the mixture even and lets it thicken gently.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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