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Lemon Filling

A thickened lemon custard used as filling for cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix corn starch with cold water in a bowl.

  2. Stir the mixture into boiling water until it thickens.

  3. Add sugar, beaten egg yolks, lemon juice, and grated rind if using.

  4. Stir in butter if desired.

  5. Use a double boiler or a saucepan set in another pot of water.

Set and use

  1. When beginning to cool, spread between cakes and let sit for several hours.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the filling into a smooth, spreadable custard as it heats in water.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the filling as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds tartness that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and softens its tart flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the starch into boiling water. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and is stirred constantly, so the granules swell evenly without lumping. Stirring in the starch slurry while the water is boiling helps it thicken smoothly.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, sugar, egg, butter):

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

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