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Dessert

Lemon Cream Bon-bons

A confection of lemon-flavored cream coated in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Cream Bon-bons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Soak the gum arabic in ½ cup hot water until dissolved.

  2. Strain into a large bowl.

  3. Add the maraschino liqueur and mix well.

  4. Gradually add enough sieved icing sugar to form a firm, elastic paste.

Shape and coat

  1. For the coating, combine the remaining icing sugar, beaten egg whites, and lemon sugar.

  2. Color the mixture a very pale yellow.

  3. Adjust consistency with lemon juice.

  4. Roll small pieces of the cream into round balls.

  5. Flatten them to about ⅜ inch thick.

  6. Allow them to dry slightly.

  7. Dip each one in the coating.

Dry and finish

  1. Place each coated bon-bon on an oiled tray to dry.

  2. Draw a strand of sugar across the top.

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. Egg + lemontop 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
Forms the firm, elastic paste that holds the bonbon shape and makes the coating.
Gum arabic
Binds the paste, giving it elasticity so it can be shaped and holds its form.
Egg whites
Adds binding and body to the coating so it sets into a smooth, dry shell.
Maraschino liqueur
Adds aromatic flavour and liquid to moisten the paste.
Lemon sugar
Sweetens the coating and carries the lemon flavour.

The step that matters

Gradually add the icing sugar to the paste. Adding sugar in small amounts lets the paste reach a firm but elastic texture. Too much at once makes it stiff and cracking, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to shape.

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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