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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.
Beat the egg yolks and strain them.
Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Make the batter
Cream the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg yolks, then the milk, followed by the whipped egg whites.
Gradually mix in the flour until fully combined.
Grate the peel of one lemon and squeeze in the juice of both lemons just before baking.
If using, fold in the currants.
Bake
Pour the batter into two square loaf pans and bake immediately.
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.
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- All-purpose flour
- Builds the cake's structure once its proteins set during baking.
- Eggs
- Yolks add richness and whipped whites add air that lightens the crumb.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives a tender, rich texture.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a fine, light texture when creamed with butter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the lemon juice's acid to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
- Lemons
- Juice adds acidity and the zest adds bright lemon aroma.
The step that matters
Bake immediately after mixing. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the lemon juice, and whipped egg whites slowly lose their air, so the batter should go into the oven right away to keep its lift.
Swap the currant
The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, milk, lemon, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk, lemon, 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.
More lemon cake recipes
You might also like
Lemon Ice147 recipes
Lemon Sherbet103 recipes
Red Currant Jelly65 recipes
Lemon Custard64 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.