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Dessert

Lemon Snow

A lemon-flavored dessert made with sugar, corn starch, lemon juice, rind, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon 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 Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix sugar and corn starch in a saucepan.

  2. Slowly add boiling water.

  3. Add a bit of lemon rind.

  4. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes.

  5. Transfer to a double boiler.

  6. Cook for 20 minutes.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Add lemon juice.

  9. Strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Slowly add the mixture to the beaten egg whites.

  2. Beat until combined.

  3. Pour into a mold to harden.

  4. Serve with vanilla-flavored custard sauce.

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. Corn + lemontop 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. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 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 lemon mixture into a stable, sliceable base as it cooks.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to create a light, airy, foamy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps balance the tartness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour.

The step that matters

Slowly add the mixture to the beaten egg whites.. Adding the hot mixture gradually, while beating, lets the whites blend in without deflating. Pouring it in quickly can collapse the foam and make the texture dense.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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