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.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add it to the mixture.
Add the sifted flour gradually, mixing well.
Incorporate the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.
Finally, add the grated lemon peel and juice, mixing until combined.
Bake and finish
Pour the batter into two shallow baking tins.
Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let the cakes cool, then ice with lemon icing and cut into squares.
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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give it a light texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidity in the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
- Sifted flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Lemon peel and juice
- Add bright aroma and acidity that gives the cake its lemon flavor.
The step that matters
Adding the eggs one at a time. Eggs added too quickly can fail to emulsify into the creamed butter and sugar, leaving a curdled batter that bakes up coarse and dense. Mixing thoroughly after each egg keeps the batter smooth so it holds air well.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- 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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