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Dessert

Lemon Sauce

A sweet lemon sauce made with butter, sugar, egg, lemon juice and rind, nutmeg, and boiled in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lemon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Beat in the egg until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the lemon juice, grated rind, and nutmeg; mix well.

  4. Gradually add the mixture to the boiling water, one teaspoon at a time.

Heat over the kettle

  1. Place the mixture in a tin pail and set it on top of a boiling tea kettle.

  2. Keep the kettle boiling to heat the sauce without boiling it; stir constantly.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the sauce a light, smooth body and richness.
Egg
Beaten in to add structure and body, thickening the sauce as it gently heats.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for sweetness and to help build a light, airy texture.
Lemon
Juice adds acidity and sharpness, while the grated rind adds bright aroma.

The step that matters

Heating over the kettle without boiling. The egg thickens as it warms, but if the sauce boils it can curdle or scramble. Gentle, constant stirring over steady steam keeps the heat even and the sauce smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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