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Dessert

Lemon Custard

A custard made with lemon juice, rind, eggs, corn starch, and water, sweetened to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Lemon Custard

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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Squeeze the lemon and grate the rind.

  2. Add the lemon juice and grated rind to 2 cups of water.

  3. Rub the corn starch smooth in a small amount of water.

  4. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

Cook and set

  1. Mix all ingredients together and cook in a custard kettle over medium heat.

  2. Sweeten to taste and pour into tumblers to cool.

  3. If preferred, beat the egg whites separately and fold them in last.

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

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 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. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 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
Thicken the custard as they set and add richness to the texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth custard as it cooks.
Lemon
Provides the tart flavour and aroma of the custard.

The step that matters

Mix all ingredients together and cook in a custard kettle over medium heat.. Corn starch must be fully smooth before heating, and the custard needs gentle, steady heat and stirring, because the starch thickens as it cooks and the eggs can curdle or scorch if overheated.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, 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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