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Dessert

Lemon Cream

A chilled lemon custard made with lemon juice, boiling water, cornstarch, egg yolks, sugar, and folded egg whites.

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. In a bowl, mix the juice of one large lemon with 1½ cups of boiling water.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of cornstarch until dissolved.

  3. In another bowl, wet the beaten yolks of 3 eggs with a little water and add 1 cup of sugar.

  4. Combine the mixtures and boil like a custard, stirring constantly.

  5. Once thickened, remove from heat and fold in the 3 beaten egg whites.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour into small tumblers and refrigerate until cold.

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 yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they cook with the lemon mixture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon liquid so it sets into a smooth, spoonable custard.
Egg whites
Folded in at the end to lighten the custard's texture and add airy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the sharp acidity of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Provides the bright, tart flavor that defines the dessert.

The step that matters

Combine the mixtures and boil like a custard, stirring constantly.. Egg yolks can scramble if overheated or left unstirred. Constant stirring keeps the heat even while the cornstarch thickens the mixture, giving a smooth custard.

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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