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Dessert

Lemon Frosting

A citrusy frosting made with lemon juice, powdered sugar, egg yolk, and optional nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Juice the lemon into a bowl.

  2. Add powdered sugar gradually until the mixture is spreadable.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg yolk.

  4. If desired, mix in chopped nuts and reduce the amount of sugar.

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

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + nutstop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavour that balances the sweetness.
Powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and body, stiffening the liquid into a spreadable frosting.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and fat, giving the frosting a smoother, more cohesive texture.

The step that matters

Adding the powdered sugar gradually. Powdered sugar thickens the mixture as it dissolves and absorbs liquid. Adding it in small amounts lets the cook stop at a spreadable consistency, since too much sugar makes the frosting stiff and dry.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar, egg):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Milletfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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