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Dessert

Lemon Cake

A cake made with egg whites, yolks, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, flour, and rose or orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lemon Cake

Why it works: Flour and butter 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 Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the egg whites and flower water for an hour.

  2. Add the sugar and grated lemon rind, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and add the lemon juice.

  4. Combine the yolk mixture with the egg white mixture.

  5. Stir in the flour until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Egg whites
Whisked to foam, they give the cake its light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture and help bind the batter.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins set during baking, giving the cake its firm structure.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it tender and moist.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg whites. Whites must be beaten until they hold a stable foam; under-whisked or greasy whites collapse, leaving a dense cake, so the foam is what gives the batter its lift.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, rose, sugar, flour, 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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Filling 16Almond 5Apple 5with Lemon Jelly 5Raisin 4Italian 3 See all 364 →

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