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Dessert

Lemon Custard

A custard made with egg yolks, milk, cornstarch, sugar, lemon juice and rind, topped with meringue and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Lemon Custard

Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine egg yolks, milk, cornstarch, and sugar.

  2. Add lemon juice and rind, and cook over medium heat until thickened.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Beat egg whites until stiff, then fold in 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the custard and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve chilled.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon 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 and add richness as they set with the cornstarch.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that cooks into a creamy custard.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard when heated with the liquid, giving it a smooth body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the tartness of the lemon.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping, which browns in the oven.
Lemon juice and rind
Adds acidity and aroma that give the custard its bright lemon flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thickened. Cornstarch needs to reach a full simmer to thicken properly; undercooked custard stays thin and can run when cut. Stirring over medium heat helps prevent scorching and lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, 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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