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Dessert

Lemon Butter

A gelatin dessert made with lemon, coffee sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Lemon Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

  2. In a porcelain kettle, combine the soaked gelatine with boiling water and stir until dissolved.

  3. Add the coffee sugar and boil until it reaches a jelly consistency.

  4. Slowly pour in the beaten egg yolks, then add tartaric acid or lemon juice and vanilla.

Set

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and set it on ice to cool.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, jelly-like structure as it cools.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and add richness and a creamy texture.
Coffee sugar
Provides sweetness and helps the mixture thicken to a jelly consistency when boiled.
Tartaric acid or lemon juice
Adds acidity that gives the dish its bright, lemony flavour.

The step that matters

Slowly pour in the beaten egg yolks. Adding cold egg yolks quickly to hot liquid can scramble them. Pouring slowly while stirring tempers the yolks so the mixture stays smooth and creamy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Bananafits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, sugar, egg, vanilla. 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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