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Dessert

Lemon Blanc Mange

A lemon custard made with eggs, sugar, water, lemon juice and rind, thickened with corn starch and topped with stiffly beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix corn starch with water in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar, lemon juice, and lemon rind; stir well.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler for 20 minutes.

  4. Add the well-beaten egg yolks and cook for 1 more minute.

  5. Remove from heat and let cool.

Serve

  1. Serve very cold in small cups, topped with stiffly beaten egg whites.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 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

Corn starch
Thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the lemon mixture a smooth, set body.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the mixture when cooked gently, and stiffly beaten whites make the light topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the lemon mixture and balances its acidity.
Lemon
Juice and rind provide the main sharp citrus flavour and aroma.

The step that matters

Add the well-beaten egg yolks and cook for 1 more minute.. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated. Cooking gently over a double boiler, and keeping the mixture moving, helps them thicken it smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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