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Dessert

Lemon Filling for Tarts, Cakes, Etc

A lemon-flavored filling made from sugar, egg, cornstarch, lemon rind and juice, simmered until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 Filling for Tarts, Cakes, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the sugar and egg together until creamy.

  2. Add the grated rind and juice of the lemon, along with the cornstarch, and blend thoroughly.

  3. Slowly pour in the boiling water while stirring.

  4. Place the mixture in a double boiler and simmer for 10 minutes.

  5. The filling is now ready to use.

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

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the egg beat to a smooth, creamy base.
Egg
Thickens and enriches the filling as its proteins set with gentle heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth filling once heated with it.
Lemon
Adds tart acidity and bright lemon aroma from the rind and juice.

The step that matters

Pour in the boiling water slowly while stirring. Adding hot liquid gradually while stirring spreads the cornstarch evenly, preventing lumps. It also keeps the egg from cooking unevenly and curdling as the mixture heats.

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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