Skip to main content
Dessert

Hamburg Cream

A lemon custard made with lemon rind, sugar, egg yolks, and folded egg whites, chilled and served.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Hamburg Cream

Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Hamburg Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the grated rind and juice of the lemons with the sugar.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and mix well.

  3. Place the mixture in a tin pail.

  4. Set the tin pail in a pot of boiling water and stir the mixture for three minutes.

  5. Remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  2. Chill the custard.

  3. Serve in custard glasses.

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.

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.

  1. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they cook, while whites folded in at the end lighten its texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemons
Rind and juice add aroma and acidity that give the custard its bright flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring over boiling water. Egg yolks thicken gently as they heat, but if the mixture gets too hot or is stirred too little it can curdle or turn grainy. Keeping it over simmering water and stirring steadily allows an even, smooth set.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes