Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 43,437 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
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
Infuse the lemon rind and bruised almonds in the milk over low heat until strongly flavored, about 2-3 minutes, without boiling.
Sweeten the milk with the sugar and stir until dissolved, then strain.
Mix the strained milk with the cream.
Gradually stir the mixture into the well-beaten egg yolks and thicken like boiled custard.
Once cooled, pour into a deep dish.
Top and bake
Beat the egg whites to a solid froth and mix with the powdered sugar.
Spread the meringue evenly over the custard.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes and serve immediately.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together43,437 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + lemontop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together19,048 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + almondtop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + creamtop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together5,129 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Milk + eggtop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together88,465 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that carries the infused flavor and sets into custard.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as their proteins set with gentle heat, giving it body.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that gives the meringue its airy, stable structure.
- Cream
- Adds fat for a richer, smoother custard texture.
- Fine sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps dissolve smoothly into the milk.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilize the beaten egg white foam.
The step that matters
Thickening the custard. Stir the warm milk into the egg yolks gradually, and keep heat gentle. Egg proteins set around 70°C (160°F), so adding hot liquid too fast or heating too hard can scramble the yolks instead of thickening them smoothly.
Flavor stand-ins for the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, almond, sugar, cream, egg):
- Vanillabetter flavor fit
- Strawberrybetter flavor fit
- Raspberrybetter flavor fit
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, almond, sugar, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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