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Lemon Creams

A lemon custard made with lemon peel, juice, sugar, and egg yolks, thickened over gentle heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Lemon Creams

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 Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the lemons very thin.

  2. Place the peel in a saucepan with the water.

  3. Squeeze the juice of the lemons over the powdered sugar.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks well.

  2. Gradually add the lemon peel, water, and juice mixture.

  3. Strain the mixture through muslin into a stew pan.

  4. Stir over a gentle fire until the mixture thickens, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Serve in custard cups.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Lemons
Provide the acidity and bright lemon flavour, with the peel adding aroma.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves easily into the lemon liquid.

The step that matters

Stir over a gentle fire and do not let it boil. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heating of their proteins. If the mixture gets too hot or boils, the proteins tighten and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth custard.

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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