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Dessert

Lemon Frosting Cake

A lemon cake topped with a lemon-flavored frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Frosting 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. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs and egg yolks, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the sweet milk.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.

  7. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the frosting

  1. For the frosting, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the fine sugar, continuing to beat until glossy.

  3. Fold in the grated lemon and lemon juice.

Finish

  1. Spread the frosting over 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
Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set and hold its crumb as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they give the frosting its light, airy, glossy body.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, adding tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise and become light.
Lemon
Its zest and juice add aroma and acidity that brighten the sweet frosting.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Egg whites must be beaten without any trace of fat or yolk, or they will not whip to stiff peaks. Adding sugar gradually stabilises the foam so the frosting stays glossy and airy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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