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Dessert

Lemon Curd

A sweet lemon custard made with sugar, lemon rind and juice, clarified butter, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Curd

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd base

  1. Melt the sugar and butter over very gentle heat.

  2. Stir in the grated lemon rind and strained lemon juice until the mixture is like honey.

  3. Beat the egg yolks in a basin.

  4. Strain the beaten yolks.

  5. Gradually add the warm mixture to the egg yolks, beating for several minutes.

Thicken and store

  1. If not thick enough, return to the pan for a few minutes.

  2. Once cool, store in small jars covered with parchment.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

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

Egg yolks
Provide the main thickening, setting the curd as they cook gently and becoming creamy and rich.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Clarified butter
Adds fat for a smooth, silky texture and a rich mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity and bright flavour that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Adding the warm mixture to the yolks. If the hot mixture is poured in too quickly or unbeaten, the yolks can scramble. Adding it gradually while beating tempers the eggs so they thicken smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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