Skip to main content
Dessert

Lemon Custard

A custard flavored with lemon zest and juice, sweetened with sugar and enriched with Madeira and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Lemon Custard

Why it works: Madeira wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 120 recipes. The science ↓

Lemon Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of 8 eggs for 30 minutes until frothy, then strain them.

  2. Pour 1 pint of boiling water over the strained yolks and add the zest of 2 lemons.

  3. Make a syrup with the juice of 2 lemons and 3 ounces of sugar, then stir it into the custard mixture.

  4. Set the mixture over low heat, adding ½ cup of Madeira and ¼ cup of brandy, and stir until it thickens.

Cool and serve

  1. Pour the custard into a bowl and stir until cool, then serve in cups.

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. Madeira wine + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together120 recipes
  2. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour that cuts through the richness of the yolks.
Madeira wine
Adds fortified wine depth and aroma to the custard.
Brandy
Adds warm spirited aroma and flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Thickening over low heat. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, and if the heat is too high they can scramble and curdle. Keep the heat low and stir steadily until the custard coats a spoon.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Currantfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, madeira wine, brandy. 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.

More lemon custard recipes

Pie 47Pudding 3 See all 178 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes