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Dessert

Lemon Cheese Cake

A light lemon cake topped with a lemon 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 ↓

Lemon 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

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together ½ cup butter and 2 cups sugar until light and fluffy, then add ¾ cup sweet milk and mix well.

  3. Beat 6 egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.

  4. Sift together 3 cups flour and 3 teaspoons baking powder, then gradually add the sifted flour mixture to the wet ingredients.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  6. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the lemon filling

  1. Combine grated rind and juice of 2 lemons, 3 egg yolks, ½ cup butter, and 1 cup sugar in a saucepan.

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

Assemble

  1. Spread the lemon sauce between the layers of the cooled 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Eggs
Whites whipped to stiff peaks give the cake its light, airy structure; yolks add richness to the filling.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes tender.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the cake and filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and filling and helps create a soft, tender crumb.
Lemons
Rind and juice provide the bright lemon aroma and acidity of the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the lemon filling over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg yolks can scramble or curdle if overheated. Gentle, constant stirring lets the yolks and juice thicken smoothly into a jelly-like filling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, 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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