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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A baked pie with a lemon custard filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. In a double boiler, stir in the sugar, butter, lemon juice, lemon rind, and salt.

  3. Gradually add the cold water while stirring until the mixture thickens like drop batter.

Assemble and brown

  1. Bake the pie crust until well pricked and golden.

  2. Once cool, pour the lemon mixture into the crust.

  3. For the meringue, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar and fold in the additional tablespoon.

  4. Spread the meringue over the pie and brown in the oven.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Thicken the filling as they cook and add richness and body to the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the filling.
Lemon juice and rind
Provide the tart acidity and bright lemon aroma that define the pie.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the meringue volume and its light structure.

The step that matters

Thickening the filling in the double boiler. Egg proteins set gently as the mixture heats, so the filling thickens smoothly. Adding water gradually and stirring constantly keeps heat even and helps prevent the eggs from scrambling or lumping.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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