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A lemon gelatin custard made with egg whites, yolks, milk, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and milk 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 ↓

Desserts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak gelatine in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Add lemon juice and sugar to the gelatine, then cool.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites until frothy.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks, whole egg, and sugar with milk to make custard.

Layer and set

  1. Layer the gelatine mixture, custard, and beaten egg whites in a glass dish.

  2. Refrigerate until set.

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 + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 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. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Gelatine (in the method)
Sets the lemon mixture into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture into a smooth custard and add richness.
Egg whites
Add lightness and airy texture when beaten and folded in.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and gives a bright flavour.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, adding creaminess and body.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the whites airy; stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense, less light layer once the dessert sets.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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