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Lemon Creams Moulded

A sweet lemon-flavoured cream moulded into shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓

Lemon Creams Moulded

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Put the icing sugar into a bowl and strain in the lemon juice.

  2. Beat the egg white to a very stiff froth and mix it thoroughly with the sugar mixture using a wooden spoon.

  3. Adjust the consistency by adding more lemon juice if needed.

  4. Let the mixture sit for about an hour before shaping.

Shape the moulds

  1. Turn it onto a well-sugared surface and roll it out to an even thickness.

  2. Dip the moulds in cold water, then in caster sugar, and stamp out shapes.

  3. Place each cream on sugared paper, dipping the mould in cold water and caster sugar between each stamping.

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. Sugar + lemontop 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).

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

Icing sugar
Provides the bulk and sweetness, and sets into a firm, dry structure for the moulds.
Egg white
Whipped to a stiff froth, it adds air and lightness so the mixture holds its shape.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour, and helps adjust the mixture's consistency.

The step that matters

Beating the egg white to a very stiff froth. Stiff, well-beaten egg white traps air that gives the mixture lightness. Under-beaten white leaves it dense and wet, while over-mixing can deflate it and make the shapes hard to hold.

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.

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