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Dessert

Hens Nest

A dessert made of blancmange shaped in egg shells, topped with lemon peel strips and boiled custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Hens Nest

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blancmange

  1. Prepare the blancmange according to the package instructions.

  2. Fill the egg shells with warm blancmange.

  3. Let the filled shells cool.

  4. Remove the blancmange from the shells.

  5. Place the blancmange in a glass dish.

Add the lemon and custard

  1. Cut lemon peel into small strips.

  2. Boil the strips in syrup until tender.

  3. Arrange the lemon strips around the blancmange forms.

  4. Make a boiled custard.

  5. Pour the custard over the blancmange.

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 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

Plain blancmange
Sets into a firm, smooth body that holds the nest shape when cooled.
Egg shells
Act as moulds that give the blancmange its rounded, egg-like form.
Lemon peel
Adds aromatic oils and a bright, slightly bitter flavour that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup that the lemon peel is cooked in, softening it and adding sweetness.
Boiled custard
Adds a soft, creamy sauce that moistens and sweetens the blancmange.

The step that matters

Let the filled shells cool. Blancmange sets as it cools, so it needs to cool fully before the shells are removed; removing it too early can make it tear or slump.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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