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Dessert

White Lemon Cream

A chilled lemon-flavored cream made with cream, lemon peel, egg yolks, egg whites, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

White Lemon Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse and strain

  1. Boil the lemon peel in the cream.

  2. Strain the mixture.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken with the beaten egg yolks and egg whites.

  2. Sweeten with loaf sugar to taste.

  3. Stir until nearly cold and pour into 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. Cream + sugartop 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. Cream + eggtop 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

Cream
Provides the rich fat and body that make the dessert smooth and creamy.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as their proteins set, adding richness and a soft, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the mixture set into a delicate, airy texture.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon peel
Infuses the cream with citrus aroma and fragrant oils.

The step that matters

Thicken with the beaten egg yolks and egg whites.. Egg proteins thicken the cream as they gently heat and set. If the mixture gets too hot or is stirred poorly, the eggs can curdle or turn grainy, so the cream should be heated gently and stirred constantly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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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