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Dessert

Lemon Filling

A lemon filling made with lemon rind, juice, sugar, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Grate the rind of 2 lemons and squeeze the juice into a bowl.

  2. In a saucepan, combine 1½ cups sugar, 1 egg, and ½ cup butter.

  3. Boil the mixture.

  4. Let it cool.

  5. Spread on cake.

Make the tartelette filling

  1. For tartelettes, melt ¼ pound butter with 1 cup sugar and 6 eggs (reserving 2 whites).

  2. Add the grated rind.

  3. Add the juice of 3 lemons.

  4. Simmer until the sugar dissolves and thickens to honey consistency.

Jar and store

  1. Pour into jars.

  2. Seal tightly.

  3. Store in a dry place.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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
Coagulate when heated, thickening the filling and giving it body.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, as it dissolves and concentrates, helps it thicken to a syrupy consistency.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the filling.
Lemons
Provide the acidity and aroma that define the filling, with rind adding fragrance and juice adding tartness.

The step that matters

Simmer the tartelette filling gently. Egg proteins can scramble and curdle if the mixture gets too hot or boils hard, so the filling should thicken gently while stirred, not be rushed over high heat.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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