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Dessert

Lemon Curd Creams

A chilled dessert made with lemon juice, eggs, butter, gelatin, brandy, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Lemon Curd Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Dissolve the saccharine in the water.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the water, beaten eggs, butter, lemon juice, and gelatin. Stir until the mixture thickens slightly and the gelatin dissolves.

  3. Strain the mixture into a basin.

  4. Add the brandy and whipped cream, and mix well.

Mould and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into dariole molds rinsed with cold water.

  2. Once firm, dip the molds briefly in warm water and turn out.

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. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the custard base and give the creams their set structure when gently heated.
Gelatin
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled and turned out.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the custard.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts through the richness.
Whipped cream
Lightens the texture and makes the set creams softer on the palate.
Brandy
Adds aromatic flavour that complements the lemon.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard over heat. Eggs thicken through gentle heating, but if they get too hot they scramble and turn grainy. Stir steadily and stop once the mixture thickens slightly, so the gelatin dissolves into a smooth base.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, brandy, cream, gelatin. 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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