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Dessert

Lemon Obeam

A chilled lemon custard made with eggs, lemon juice, sugar, and water, set over a double boiler.

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 Obeam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the lemons.

  2. Squeeze the lemons.

  3. Mix the lemon juice with the water.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks and sugar together.

  2. Beat the egg whites separately.

  3. Combine the water and lemon mixture with the yolks and sugar.

  4. Fold in the egg whites.

  5. Set the mixture over a double boiler.

  6. Stir until it begins to thicken.

Serve

  1. Serve the next day in glass cups.

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

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

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

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

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
Yolks thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, and whites add lightness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemons
Provide acidity and fragrant citrus aroma.

The step that matters

Stir over the double boiler until it begins to thicken. Egg proteins set gently at moderate heat. If the mixture gets too hot or is left unstirred, the eggs can scramble and the custard turns grainy. Stirring keeps the heat even and the texture smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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