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Dessert

Lemon Whip

A chilled lemon custard made with yolks, sugar, and whipped egg whites, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Whip

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon base

  1. Juice the lemons and grate the rind.

  2. Beat the lemon juice, grated rind, egg yolks, and sugar together in a bowl.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until creamy.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Serve cold in parfait glasses topped with whipped cream.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Lemons
Juice provides sharp acidity and the grated rind adds fragrant lemon aroma.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture into a creamy custard when cooked gently and add richness.
Egg whites
Folded in after cooking, they add an airy, light texture to the whip.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture gently in a double boiler until creamy. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but high direct heat can scramble them. Gentle indirect heat from the double boiler lets the mixture thicken smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream. 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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