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 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 batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the well-beaten yolks of the eggs and mix well.
Sift the flour with the baking powder and add it to the mixture alternately with the milk.
Stir in the lemon extract.
Bake and ice
Divide the batter into two greased cake pans and bake until golden.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the lemon juice and enough powdered sugar to make a stiff icing.
Spread the icing between the layers of cake.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the cake rich and tender in texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep a soft crumb.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and the whites are whipped to build the icing.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, tender batter.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
The step that matters
Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter and sugar until light and fluffy traps air in the fat, which expands in the oven and lifts the batter. Under-creaming gives a denser, heavier cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, 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.
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