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Dessert

Lemon Cream

A chilled lemon custard made with water, sugar, lemon peel, juice, egg yolks, cornstarch, and folded in stiff beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓

Lemon Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Bring 1 quart of water and 6 ounces of sugar to a boil.

  2. Add the grated peel of 1 lemon, juice of 3 lemons, and 6 egg yolks.

  3. Dissolve 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in a little water and add the dissolved cornstarch to the mixture.

  4. Boil while stirring constantly until done.

  5. Remove from heat and let cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Fold in the stiff-beaten whites of 6 eggs.

  2. Pour into a dish and refrigerate until cold.

  3. Turn out and serve with fruit juice.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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 as they set and add richness to the lemon base.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid when boiled, giving the custard body.
Stiff-beaten egg whites
Add airy lightness to the set custard through trapped air.
Sugar
Sweetens the lemon mixture and balances its acidity.
Lemon juice
Provides the main tart lemon flavor and acidity.

The step that matters

Boil while stirring constantly. Cornstarch needs to reach a full boil while being stirred to thicken evenly; stopping early leaves a thin texture, and not stirring can cause lumps or scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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