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Dessert

Delicious Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Delicious Lemon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks in a bowl.

  3. Add 1 cup of sugar, 3 tablespoons of milk, 1 tablespoon of melted butter, the grated rind, and juice of 1 lemon; mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until it puffs and a knife comes out clean.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. For the meringue, beat the 3 egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add 4 tablespoons of powdered sugar, then fold in 3 more tablespoons of sugar.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie and bake for about 10 minutes until golden.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the lemon filling and give it structure as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor, and helps the filling set when combined with egg.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the light, stable meringue topping.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to firm peaks before sugar is added, because the foam traps air and gives the meringue its volume. Under-whipped whites will weep or collapse, and grease or yolk in the bowl will stop them from whipping properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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