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 ↓
2 -citron Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Rub the lemon peel with the sugar and place it in a bowl.
Dissolve the sugar in a little boiling water.
Lightly rub the butter into the flour.
Mix in the citron.
If using Genoese flour, add 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
Reserve the egg whites and beat the yolks.
Make the batter
Add the dissolved sugar to the milk and mix well.
Butter the mold and tie paper around it to allow the cake to rise.
Mix the egg yolks with the flour.
Beat the reserved egg whites and gently fold them into the batter.
Pour the batter into the mold.
Bake
Place it in the oven immediately.
Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours.
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.
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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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Flour + milktop 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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Lemon + milktop 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
- Eggs
- Egg whites trapped by beating add air and lift, giving the cake its light structure.
- Self-raising flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
- Milk
- Supplies liquid that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb moist.
- Lemon
- Its peel gives aroma and fresh citrus flavour to the cake.
- Lump sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps tenderise its texture.
The step that matters
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter. The air trapped in the whites is what lifts the cake as it bakes. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake that rises less.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, 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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