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Dessert

Lemon Cream

A lemon custard made with lemon rinds, juice, water, egg whites and yolks, sweetened and cooked gently.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the rinds from 2 lemons as thinly as possible.

  2. Squeeze the juice from 3 lemons and add it to the rinds and spring water.

Make the custard

  1. Mix in the beaten egg whites and sweeten to taste.

  2. Stir continuously until it thickens, being careful not to boil.

  3. Strain through a cloth and mix in the beaten egg yolks.

  4. Heat over low until thickened, then pour into a bowl.

Cool and serve

  1. Let it cool completely before serving in glasses.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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 whites
Set into a delicate structure that helps the custard thicken as it heats.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Lemon juice
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Lemon rinds
Infuse the liquid with fragrant citrus oils for aroma.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the lemon's acidity.

The step that matters

Heating without boiling. Egg proteins thicken gently as they warm, but overheating or boiling causes them to tighten and curdle, leaving a grainy custard. Stirring constantly and using low heat spreads the heat evenly and keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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