Name: Lemon Cream Without Cream
Ingredients: 1 quart new milk; peel of 3 small lemons, cut thin; 4 grains saccharin or 8 tabloids; ¾ ounce bitter almonds, blanched and pounded to a paste; 2 ounces gelatine or isinglass; 7 eggs, yolks only; juice of 3 small lemons

Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Lemon Cream Without Cream

Ingredients

1 quart new milk
peel of 3 small lemons, cut thin
4 grains saccharin or 8 tabloids
¾ ounce bitter almonds, blanched and pounded to a paste
2 ounces gelatine or isinglass
7 eggs, yolks only
juice of 3 small lemons

Directions

Make the custard base

In a saucepan, combine the milk and lemon peel.
Add saccharin and almond paste, then gelatine.
Boil over medium heat for 8-9 minutes until gelatine dissolves.
Strain through a fine sieve into a jug.
Stir in the yolks of the eggs.

Finish and set

Pour the mixture between two jugs until barely cold.
Add the strained lemon juice and stir quickly.
Pour into an oiled mold.

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.

Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,655 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 pudding and give it a rich, smooth body.
Gelatine: Sets the liquid so the pudding holds its shape when turned out.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that the eggs and gelatine set into a custard.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and flavor of the pudding.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture between two jugs until barely cold. Cooling the hot mixture to nearly set before adding lemon juice keeps the acid from curdling the egg yolks and helps the gelatine begin to set evenly.

Swap the almond

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

Milletfits about as well
Walnutfits about as well
Peasfits about as well
Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, 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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Lemon Cream Without Cream