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Dessert

Lemon Custard for Tarts

A lemon-flavored custard made with sugar, butter, eggs, and lemon juice and zest, used as a filling for tarts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Custard for Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the egg whites one at a time, beating well after each addition until light.

  3. Cream the butter and mix it into the egg mixture.

  4. Place the mixture in a bowl and set it over a kettle of boiling water.

  5. Stir continuously until the custard thickens.

Cool

  1. Remove from heat and let cool.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness.
Egg whites
Whipped to incorporate air, giving the custard a light texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the yolks whip to a creamy texture.
Lemon juice and zest
Provide acidity and aroma that brighten the custard.

The step that matters

Stirring over boiling water until the custard thickens. Egg yolks set when heated gently and stirred, but overheating or leaving the mixture still can scramble them into lumps. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the custard thickens smoothly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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