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Dessert

Lemon Cream

A chilled lemon custard made with spring water, egg whites, yolks, lemon juice, rind, and sugar.

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

Make the custard

  1. Combine spring water, beaten egg whites, lemon juice, grated lemon rind, and sugar in a pot.

  2. Mix well and heat gently without boiling.

  3. Once cool, stir in the beaten egg yolks and heat again until thickened.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour into a basin and stir frequently until cold.

  2. Transfer to custard glasses for serving.

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. Egg + lemontop 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

Eggs
Egg whites and yolks thicken the custard as they set on gentle heating.
Lemon juice
Provides the acidity that gives the custard its bright, sharp flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Spring water
Forms the liquid base in which the eggs and sugar dissolve and set.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Egg proteins thicken when warmed but curdle and turn grainy if overheated or boiled, so the custard must stay below boiling while it thickens.

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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