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Dessert

Lemon Filling

A lemon filling made with lemon juice, rind, sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, boiling water, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Combine the lemon juice, lemon rind, sugar, egg yolks, and cornstarch in a double boiler, then mix well.

  2. Pour in the boiling water.

  3. Stir continuously until the mixture thickens to a jelly-like consistency.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Stir in the butter until melted.

Serve

  1. Spread the warm filling on cake.

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness through their proteins setting as they heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as starch granules swell in the hot liquid to form a jelly-like texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps keep the egg yolks from clumping as they heat.
Lemon juice
Adds the sharp acidity that brightens the filling's flavor.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until the mixture thickens. Egg yolks and starch can scorch or curdle if they sit still over heat. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly so the starch thickens smoothly and the yolks set gently without lumps.

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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