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Dessert

Lemon Cream

A chilled lemon custard made with cream, egg yolks, sugar, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 cream base

  1. Combine the thick cream, egg yolks, white sugar, and lemon rind in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Stir until it is almost cold.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the lemon juice into a dish.

  2. Add the cream mixture.

  3. Stir well until cold.

  4. Serve in a large glass dish or in custard cups, either alone or with accompaniments.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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, full body to the finished dessert.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they heat, giving the cream a custard-like set.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour that cuts through the rich cream.
Lemon rind
Contributes fragrant lemon oils that give aroma to the cream.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture. Egg yolks thicken as they heat but can curdle or turn grainy if overheated. Heating gently and stirring keeps the custard smooth before it cools.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. 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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