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 ↓
Citron Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Rub the lemon peel with the sugar and place it in a basin.
Dissolve the sugar with a little boiling water.
Lightly rub the butter into the flour and mix in the citron.
Beat the yolks of the eggs and add to the dissolved sugar, mixing well.
Butter your mold and tie paper around it to allow the cake to rise.
Make the batter
Mix the eggs with the flour.
Beat the reserved egg whites and gently fold them in.
Bake
Pour the batter into the mold and 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.
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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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
- Self-raising flour
- Forms the structure that holds the risen cake together.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add richness, while beaten whites add lift.
- Butter
- Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives richness.
- Lump sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist.
- Lemon
- Lemon peel adds aroma and bright flavour to the cake.
The step that matters
Pour the batter into the mold and bake immediately. Self-raising flour starts releasing gas as soon as it is mixed with liquid. Waiting before baking lets that lift escape, leaving a denser cake.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg. 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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