Why it works: Milk and butter 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 bowl, cream the butter and powdered sugar together.
Add the beaten egg yolks, then mix in the sweet milk and dissolved baking soda.
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.
Sift in the flour and gently mix until combined.
Finally, add the grated lemon rind and juice, and mix well.
Bake
Pour the batter into loaf pans and bake until golden.
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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Milk + buttertop 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
- Eggs
- Yolks add richness and emulsify the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a light crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps give a fine texture.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic lemon to release gas, helping the cake rise.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and helps the batter bind and bake evenly.
The step that matters
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Overmixing or deflating them while folding makes the cake dense and heavy, so fold gently just until blended.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, flour, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, flour, 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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