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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A pie with lemon custard filling and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve cornstarch in a little cold water.

  2. Add sugar, butter, and boiling water.

  3. Boil until thick and smooth, about 5 minutes.

  4. When cool, add bread crumbs, lemon juice, lemon rind, and eggs.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake the crusts in individual shells until nearly done.

  2. Fill with lemon custard.

  3. Use egg whites to make a meringue.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the custard as it boils, giving it a smooth, sliceable body.
Eggs
Add richness and help the custard set once cooked.
Bread crumbs
Help thicken the filling and give it body.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the lemon's acidity.
Lemon
Provides the tart, aromatic flavour from the juice and rind.

The step that matters

Boil until thick and smooth, about 5 minutes. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil and its starch granules swell. Stopping early leaves a thin, runny custard, while overcooking can break it down and make it gluey.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, 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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