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Dessert

Lemon Butter

A lemon butter sauce made by cooking sugar, water, eggs, butter, cornstarch, lemon juice, and rind over a double boiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, combine sugar, water, eggs, butter, cornstarch, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

  2. Place the bowl over boiling water.

  3. Cook while stirring often until smooth.

Serve

  1. Use as a sauce, filling for tarts, or jelly for layer cake.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Thicken the mixture as they set with gentle heat, giving body to the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce that holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the sauce's bright flavor.
White sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the tartness of the lemon.

The step that matters

Cook while stirring often until smooth. Eggs can curdle or scramble if the heat is too high or stirring stops. Constant stirring over gentle, indirect heat lets the eggs and cornstarch thicken evenly into a smooth sauce.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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