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Dessert

Lemon Float

A chilled milk pudding with lemon zest, egg yolks, and whipped egg whites, optionally topped with grated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 306 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Lemon Float

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and 3 tablespoons of sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the corn starch smoothly with a little milk, then add it along with the grated lemon rind.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes, then add the beaten egg yolks and stir constantly for 5 minutes.

  4. Place the saucepan in a bowl of ice water and stir until cool.

  5. Strain into a pudding dish.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add the lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of sugar to the egg whites.

  3. Pour the egg white mixture over the pudding.

  4. Optionally, add grated coconut to the egg whites before serving.

  5. Serve ice cold.

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. Corn + coconuttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the body of the custard and carries the sweetness and richness of the dish.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat, giving it a smooth, set texture.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the light, airy float on top.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard by swelling in hot liquid, giving it body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the whipped egg white topping.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour to the topping.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard while it thickens. Egg yolks and starch can scorch on the bottom of the pan or curdle if left unstirred, so constant stirring keeps the custard smooth as it thickens.

Swap the coconut

The recipe marks coconut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, corn, lemon, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, corn, lemon, 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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