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Dessert

Hamburg Cream

A custard dessert made with eggs, sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice, folded with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Hamburg Cream

Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Hamburg Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until frothy.

  2. Add the granulated sugar, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  3. Place the mixture in a double boiler.

  4. Cook, stirring constantly, until it thickens like custard.

  5. Let it cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Serve in ice 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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture into a custard as they set with gentle heat.
Egg whites
Whipped to add air, giving the cooled cream a light, airy texture.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cream and softens the set custard slightly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Lemon rind
Adds concentrated lemon aroma from the oils in the peel.

The step that matters

Cook, stirring constantly, in the double boiler. Egg yolks set at gentle heat and can scramble if overheated or left unstirred. Constant stirring and indirect heat keep the custard smooth and thickened rather than grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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