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Dessert

Lemon Butter

A lemon butter dessert made with sugar, eggs, hot water, cornstarch, butter, lemon juice and rind, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Lemon Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

  1. In a pot, combine sugar, eggs, hot water, cornstarch, butter, and lemon juice and rind.

  2. Stir the mixture and bring it to a boil for 8 minutes.

Finish and set

  1. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

  2. Beat the mixture for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour into a pan and let it cool before cutting into squares.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Thicken and set as they heat, giving the lemon mixture a rich, custard-like body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid when boiled, so the mixture firms up as it cools.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharp flavor of the lemon.
Lemons
Provide acidity and bright lemon flavor from both juice and rind.

The step that matters

Keep stirring while the mixture boils. Eggs can scramble and cornstarch can scorch or clump if the mixture sits on the heat unstirred. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so the curd thickens smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, vanilla. 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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