Why it works: Lemon and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Lemon Sponge or Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Take the cold lemon jelly and beat it thoroughly into the whites of 6 well-beaten eggs.
Continue beating until the mixture is white and clear throughout.
Turn the mixture into molds and serve with boiled custard.
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.
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Egg whites
- Beaten into a foam that traps air, giving the cake a light, airy structure.
- Lemon jelly
- Adds lemon flavour and sweetness, and its gelatin helps the mixture set firm in the molds.
The step that matters
Beating until white and clear throughout. Beaten egg whites trap air and form the foam that gives the cake its light structure. Keep beating until the colour is even, because unmixed streaks of jelly will not set evenly.
“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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