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Lemon Filling

A sweet lemon custard used as a cake filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a double boiler, combine sugar, lemon juice, lemon rind, hot water, and butter.

  2. Stir until the mixture thickens.

  3. Dissolve corn starch or flour in a little water and add to the mixture.

  4. Finally, stir in the yolks of the eggs.

Finish

  1. Spread the filling between layers of cake.

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 + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the filling and help it set into a thick, smooth custard.
Corn starch or flour
Thickens the filling as it heats, giving it body and a spreadable texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon
Supplies juice for tartness and rind for bright lemon aroma.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks. Egg yolks can scramble if they meet very hot mixture too quickly. Keeping the heat gentle and stirring steadily, after the starch has thickened the filling, helps keep the custard smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, corn, 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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