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Dessert

Modern Cookery

A lemon custard layered with macaroons, candied citron, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, mix 4 teaspoons of flour with ½ cup of cream until smooth.

  2. Add 6 ounces of sugar and heat over a clear fire until boiling.

  3. Stir in the flour mixture and simmer for 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool completely.

  5. Gradually mix in the strained juice of 2 lemons.

Assemble and garnish

  1. In a glass dish, layer macaroons, then pour in part of the cream mixture.

  2. Add another layer of macaroons and top with the remaining cream.

  3. Garnish with thinly sliced candied citron.

  4. For added flavor, infuse the cream with lemon rind and cinnamon before adding flour.

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 + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cream
Provides richness and body, giving the custard its creamy texture.
Fine flour
Thickens the cream so the custard holds its texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the tart lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavor to the custard.
Macaroons
Soften as they soak up custard, adding almond flavor and chewy texture.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the infused cream.

The step that matters

Simmer the flour mixture with constant stirring. Flour starch thickens only when heated while being stirred; stirring keeps it evenly dispersed and prevents lumps, giving a smooth custard.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, flour, cinnamon. 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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