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Dessert

Lemon Snow

A chilled lemon custard made with milk, cornstarch, sugar, 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: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix the cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  2. Scald the remainder of the milk.

  3. Add the cornstarch mixture to the hot milk, stirring constantly; cook for five minutes while stirring well.

  4. Add the sugar and salt; stir until dissolved and set aside to cool.

  5. Once cool, add the lemon juice.

Combine and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually pour the thickened milk over them.

  2. Chill in the refrigerator and serve cold with cream or preserved fruit.

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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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).

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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard as it cooks.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the dessert its light, airy structure.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard that sets around the whipped whites.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the lemon juice's acidity.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity and fresh citrus aroma to the mild custard.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually pour the thickened milk over them.. Whites must be fully whipped before the custard is added, and the custard should be cooled so it does not deflate or cook the foam. Pouring slowly keeps the airy structure intact.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, 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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