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Dessert

Lemon Butter

A lemon butter sauce made from butter, sugar, eggs, lemon juice, and rind, used for pies or pastries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. In a double boiler, combine the creamed mixture with the beaten eggs, lemon juice, and grated rind.

  3. Stir continuously over heat until thick, ensuring it does not boil.

Use the sauce

  1. Use the mixture for pies or pastries.

  2. Bake the crust first, then pour in the lemon butter and place it in the oven to melt.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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
Set and thicken the sauce as they gently cook, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Provides the tart acidity that defines the sauce's flavour.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic lemon oils that deepen the citrus flavour.

The step that matters

Stir continuously over heat until thick, without boiling. Egg proteins set at moderate heat and curdle if they get too hot. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than turning grainy or scrambled.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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