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Dessert

Macaroons with Lemon Custard

A dessert of macaroons topped with a lemon custard and browned egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Macaroons with Lemon Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Line a dish with macaroons.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice, water, and dissolved cornstarch together.

  3. Pour the mixture into a double boiler and stir until thick.

Assemble and brown

  1. Pour the thickened mixture over the macaroons.

  2. Top with the beaten egg whites and place in the oven for a few minutes to brown.

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. 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 and whites are beaten to form a topping that browns.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon mixture as it heats, giving the custard body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemons
Supply the lemon juice that gives the custard its sharp, fresh flavour.
Macaroons
Form the base layer that the custard is poured over.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard in the double boiler until thick. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it heats enough to swell and gel. Stirring over gentle heat in a double boiler keeps the egg yolks from scrambling while the starch sets evenly, so the custard becomes smooth rather than lumpy or grainy.

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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