Skip to main content
Dessert

Lemon Paste for Cheese Cakes

A lemon paste made from butter, sugar, lemon juice, zest, and egg yolks and whites, used in cheese cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Paste for Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon mixture

  1. Combine butter and sugar in a clean saucepan and stir until the sugar melts.

  2. Add the juice of 2 lemons.

  3. Blend the yolks and whites of the eggs in a bowl.

  4. Stir in the grated rind of 2 lemons.

  5. Add the egg mixture to the saucepan.

  6. Stir continuously and let it boil gently until it resembles honey.

Pot and store

  1. Pour the mixture into a dry pot.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Cover as you would jam.

  4. Store in a cool, dry place; it will keep for twelve months or more.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the set mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with the heat, thickens it into a spreadable texture.
Eggs
Egg yolks and whites thicken the mixture as they cook, giving it a custard-like set.
Lemons
Juice and rind supply the sharp acidity and bright aroma that define the flavour.

The step that matters

Stir continuously and let it boil gently until it resembles honey. Egg proteins can scramble or curdle if the mixture overheats or is left unstirred, so constant stirring and gentle heat keep it smooth while it thickens.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes