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Dessert

Lemon Cream

A lemon custard made by combining lemon zest, juice, eggs, and sugar, then cooked over a bain-marie until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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

Make the custard

  1. Add the thin yellow rind of 2 lemons and the juice of all 3 lemons to the warm water.

  2. Add sugar to taste, starting with about 1½ cups.

  3. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  4. Beat in the yolks and combine both mixtures.

  5. Gradually pour in the lemon mixture while beating.

  6. Place the mixture in a basin over boiling water and stir until thickened like custard.

Chill and serve

  1. Strain into a pitcher and cool.

  2. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

  3. 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.

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 + sugartop 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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Eggs
Egg proteins and yolks thicken the mixture into a custard as they gently set with heat.
Lemons
Juice provides the acidity and bright flavour, while the rind adds aroma.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Thickening over boiling water. Egg proteins set gradually with gentle heat. If the mixture gets too hot or is stirred too little, it can curdle or turn grainy instead of smooth and thick.

Swap the lemon

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

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