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Fine Lemon Cream for Pies

A lemon custard made from butter, sugar, water, lemons, eggs, and corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fine Lemon Cream for Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon syrup

  1. Boil 10 quarts of water with 6 lbs of sugar for 5 minutes.

  2. Grate 2 lemons into the sugar.

  3. Add the juice of 15 lemons to the mixture.

Combine with the eggs

  1. In a large bowl, beat 16 eggs and 1½ lbs of corn starch together.

  2. Pour the boiling sugar mixture into the egg mixture while stirring until smooth.

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. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken and set the cream as they cook, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Corn starch
Thickens the mixture so the cream holds its shape when cooled.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemons
Provide the bright acidity and aroma that define the cream's flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling sugar mixture into the eggs while stirring. Adding hot syrup to eggs too quickly can scramble them. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the eggs warm gradually and the starch thickens into a smooth cream.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, corn. 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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