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 cake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy, then add the milk and mix well.
Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the mixture.
Divide the batter into layers and bake until golden.
Make the jelly and assemble
For the jelly, combine the grated lemon rind, lemon juice, sugar, and cold water in a saucepan.
Mix the flour with a little water to form a paste, then add to the saucepan.
Boil the mixture until it thickens, then spread 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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake, setting as it bakes around the trapped air.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise and turn light.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the butter hold air when creamed.
- Eggs (in the method)
- Not in this record; omitted.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour to the jelly filling.
The step that matters
Boil the jelly until it thickens. Flour thickens only when boiled with liquid, as its starch swells and sets the mixture. If it is not boiled long enough, the filling stays runny and soaks into the layers.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, 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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