Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Lemon Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
In a saucepan, combine the cream, beaten egg yolks, sugar, and lemon rind.
Bring to a boil, then stir until almost cold.
Add the lemon
In a bowl, add the lemon juice, then pour the cream mixture over it, stirring until completely cold.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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
- Thick cream
- Provides richness and a smooth, creamy body.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the mixture as they heat and set it into a smooth custard.
- Fine sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the lemon.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour.
The step that matters
Stirring the cream into the lemon juice until completely cold. Acid in lemon juice can make a hot egg-thickened cream curdle or turn grainy. Stirring while the mixture cools spreads the heat and keeps the custard smooth as it thickens.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Strawberryfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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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