Skip to main content
Dessert

Lemon Custard

A baked custard made with eggs, butter, sugar, cornstarch, water, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Lemon Custard

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 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.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks, butter, and sugar together.

  2. Mix the cornstarch with a little water.

  3. Stir the cornstarch mixture into the egg mixture and cook until thickened, like boiled custard.

  4. Remove from heat and pour into a mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites and spread them on top.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until browned.

  3. Serve with sweet cream or alone.

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. 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. Butter + sugartop 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
Yolks thicken the custard and whites form the browned topping.
Cornstarch
Starch thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the custard body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the egg mixture hold together while baking.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornstarch mixture until thickened. Starch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and is stirred constantly, so stopping too early leaves a thin custard, while overheating can scramble the egg yolks.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More lemon custard recipes

Pie 47Pudding 3 See all 178 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon Water IceLemon Water Ice55 recipes