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Dessert

Lemon Custards

A lemon custard made with wine, sugar, lemon juice, zest, and eggs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Lemon Custards

Why it works: White wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,832 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Lemon Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine white wine, sugar, lemon juice, and zests in a saucepan.

  2. Boil for a while.

  3. Remove the peel and a little of the liquid.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Make the custard

  1. Pour the cooled mixture into a dish.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and whites together, then mix the beaten eggs with the cooled liquid and stir well.

  3. Place the dish over a slow fire or in boiling water to bake until set.

Finish and serve

  1. Grate lemon zest over the top.

  2. Optionally brown the zest with a salamander.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. White wine + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Egg whites
Add structure as they set, helping the custard hold its shape.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the acidity of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity and lemon flavour to the custard.
White wine
Adds liquid and a light acidity that carries the lemon aroma.

The step that matters

Bake until set over gentle heat. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures; a fierce fire or boiling water that is too hot can curdle the eggs and leave the custard grainy rather than smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, 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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