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Dessert

Lemon Cream Sponge

A dessert made from lemon juice and rind, egg yolks, gelatin and beaten egg whites, served with cream or soft custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lemon Cream Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with 4 tablespoons of sugar.

  3. Add the juice and grated rind of the lemons and 2 tablespoons of hot water.

Make the custard

  1. Place the mixture in a double boiler until it thickens like soft custard, adding the gelatin just before removing from heat.

  2. Let it cool until it begins to set, then fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold that has been wet with cold water.

  2. Serve with cream or soft custard.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + gelatintop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,215 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and stiffly beaten whites lighten the set mixture.
Gelatin
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out of the mold.
Lemons
Provide acidity and aroma from the juice and grated rind.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatin before removing from heat. Gelatin must be fully dissolved into the warm custard without boiling. Overheating can weaken its setting power, and letting the mixture cool too far before folding in the whites can make it set unevenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, gelatin. 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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