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Dessert

Hamburg Cream

A lemon custard dessert made with sugar, lemon zest, juice, eggs, and whipped egg whites, chilled and served in glasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Hamburg Cream

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 ↓

Hamburg Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon base

  1. Grate the rind of the lemons and juice them.

  2. In a saucepan over boiling water, combine the lemon juice, grated rind, and sugar.

  3. Beat the yolks of the eggs and add them to the mixture.

Thicken and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Stir the mixture over boiling water until it thickens like custard.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the beaten egg whites and mix well.

  4. Chill in the refrigerator and serve in 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + eggtop 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the mixture like custard, while whites whip into a light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemons
Juice and rind supply acidity and aroma that flavour the cream.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard over boiling water. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the mixture gets too hot it can curdle or turn grainy. Stirring gently over simmering water keeps the heat even so the cream sets smooth.

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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