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Dessert

Lemon Puffs

A sweet, airy confection made from sugar, lemon zest, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Sift the sugar into a bowl.

  2. Grate the lemon rind and mix it with the sugar.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add them to the sugar and lemon rind.

  4. Beat the mixture for 1 hour until well combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the mixture as desired and place it on parchment paper on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Let cool before removing from the paper.

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. Sugar + lemontop 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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Double-refined sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk of the structure once beaten and baked.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff foam, they trap air and give the puffs their light, airy texture.
Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma and flavour from its oils.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture for 1 hour. Long beating incorporates air from the stiff egg whites into the sugar, which sets the puffs' lightness. Under-beating leaves the mixture dense, while the sugar must be fully combined so it dissolves evenly and the puffs bake uniformly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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