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Dessert

Lemon Cream

A chilled lemon custard made with fresh lemons, water, sugar, egg whites, and yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemon base

  1. Remove the rind from the lemons.

  2. Squeeze the juice and strain it.

  3. Combine the lemon juice, rind, 1 quart of water, and sweeten to taste.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites to the mixture.

  3. Heat the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

  4. Pour the mixture into a bowl and let it cool.

  5. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  6. Return the strained mixture to the heat.

  7. Add the egg yolks and stir until thick.

Serve

  1. Serve in glasses.

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. Sugar + eggtop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Egg whites
Add airy foam and help lighten the texture of the custard.
Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity and aroma that flavor the custard.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture gently without boiling. Egg proteins thicken with gentle heat but curdle or turn grainy if overheated. Stirring constantly over low heat spreads the heat evenly and keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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