Lemonade? No, Lemon Creams!

Desserts in the eighteenth-century are light, little things meant to clear your palate after the heavy flavors of the meal. One of the prettiest is a Lemon Cream. Despite the name, this dessert does not involve any actual cream, just lemon juice, sugar, water, and egg whites.

(Our dessert section.  The Lemon Creams are in the glasses in the back.)

I used the Lemon Cream recipe from E. Smith’s The Compleat Housewife. Her recipe reads, “Take five large lemons, and squeeze out the juice, and the whites of six eggs well beaten, ten ounces of double refin’d sugar beaten very fine, and twenty spoonfuls of spring water; mix all together and strain it through a jelly-bag; set it over a gentle fire, scum it very well, when ‘tis as hot as you can bear your finger in, take it off, and pour it into Glasses; put shreds of lemon-peel into some of the glasses.”

So, take five large lemons and juice them. I find that the best way to juice any citrus fruit it to cut it in half, then slash it across with a knife, then dig in your fingers and let the juice run into a bowl. Once you’ve juiced the lemons, get together your egg whites. Take care that no yolk gets into the bowl of whites. Beat them fairly well, but these don’t need to be stiff like they would if you were making a pound cake. Mix the juice and whites together, add in ten ounces of sugar, then twenty tablespoons of water. Beat all together, then strain through a cloth of some kind. If you have a jelly-bag, great. I used a rag. You can use a cheese cloth. Just push the mixture through the cloth/bag and into a pot. Then set it on a burner turned on low-to-medium and cook until it’s not quite boiling. Be sure to stir the whole time so the eggs don’t solidify! Pour into glasses when it’s at a jelly-like texture. Very lovely dessert and so pretty in the glasses!


Note: Eating not-fully-cooked egg whites can be detrimental to your health in rare cases, and I’m not sure these actually get “fully cooked” (I think 160 degrees is standard), so just be aware of that if you attempt this recipe.