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Lemon Cream, Made Without Cream

A chilled lemon custard made with lemon rinds, sugar, water, egg whites, yolks, and lemon juice.

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, Made Without Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pour boiling water over the thin rinds of the lemons and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture sit for 1 hour.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture along with the lemon juice and mix thoroughly.

  3. Strain the mixture into a deep jug.

  4. Place the jug in a pan of boiling water.

  5. Stir the jug continuously until thickened.

Set and chill

  1. Pour the thickened mixture into glasses.

  2. Stir the glasses occasionally until nearly cold.

  3. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours before serving.

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. Sugar + eggtop 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

Eggs
Egg whites and yolks thicken the mixture as they heat, giving it a creamy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Provides sharp acidity and bright flavour that cuts through the sweetness.
Lemon rinds
Infused in boiling water to release aromatic oils and lemon flavour.

The step that matters

Stir the jug continuously until thickened. Egg proteins begin to set around 160°F (71°C). Constant stirring over gentle heat keeps them from curdling into lumps before the mixture thickens smoothly.

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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