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 lemons
Soak the lemons in ½ pint of cold water for 1 hour.
Rub the lemons thoroughly with lumps of sugar to extract the oil and enhance the color.
Add the sugar and juice of the lemons to the hot water.
Make the cream
Beat the egg yolks until very light.
Add the beaten yolks to the lemon mixture.
Set the dish in a kettle half full of boiling water over heat.
Stir constantly.
Let it boil until it thickens to a rich cream.
Cool
Set the mixture on ice to cool.
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.
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 mixture into a rich, smooth cream as they cook.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cream and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
- Lemons
- Provide acidity and aroma; their oil is drawn out by rubbing with sugar.
The step that matters
Stir constantly while the mixture heats. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if they get too hot or sit still they can curdle and turn grainy. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the cream thickens smoothly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- 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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