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Dessert

Lemon Custard

A lemon custard baked in a pie crust with bread crumbs, butter, and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Lemon Custard

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lemon Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine water, lemon rind, lemon juice, sugar, corn starch, and egg yolks.

  3. Line a pie dish with the pie crust.

  4. Pour the mixture into the crust.

  5. Sprinkle the crumbled bread on top and dot with butter pieces.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until set.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix in the sugar.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture on top of the baked custard.

  4. Return to the oven until the top is light brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and the whipped whites form a light, airy meringue topping.
Corn starch
Thickens the lemon filling so it sets into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Lemon
Provides the rind and juice that give the custard its bright, sharp flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the meringue whites stay stable and glossy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the custard a smoother, softer texture.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks; under-beaten whites will weep or slump on the custard, while the sugar added afterward helps keep the foam stable and glossy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, egg, bread, butter, walnut. 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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