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Dessert

Lemon Cream Cake

A light lemon-flavored cake with a sweet lemon filling.

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 Cream 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 batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and then add them to the mixture.

  5. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then gradually add to the mixture.

  6. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the filling, combine 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, 2 eggs, grated lemon rind, and lemon juice in a saucepan.

  3. Cook over medium heat until it thickens to a jelly-like consistency.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling between the cake layers and dust powdered sugar on top.

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, whites are whipped to lighten it, and eggs set the lemon filling.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed texture.
Lemon juice and rind
Provides acidity and bright lemon aroma that flavour the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the lemon filling over medium heat. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with heat. Cooking too fast or too hot can curdle the eggs, so stir constantly and cook gently until it thickens.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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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