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Dessert

Lemon Custard

A custard made with wine, brandy, lemon peel and juice, powdered sugar, and egg yolks.

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

Why it works: White wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 620 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Lemon Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the white wine, water, and brandy together.

  2. Let the mixture cool slightly, then add the grated peel and juice of the lemons, powdered sugar, and egg yolks.

  3. Stir over low heat until the mixture thickens.

  4. Pour into a basin and stir occasionally until cool.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a dish or cups and sprinkle with powdered sugar on top.

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. White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 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).

Lemon and sugar 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 custard as they set gently over low heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Lemons
Provide the acidity and aroma from the grated peel and juice that brighten the custard.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves smoothly into the warm liquid.
White wine
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds a light acidic, fruity flavour.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until the mixture thickens. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the heat is too high they can curdle or scramble, leaving the custard grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, brandy, 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.

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