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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with a sweetened egg white meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve corn starch in a little water.

  2. Grate the rind of one lemon into the water.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Add the corn starch and let it thicken.

  5. Remove the mixture from the heat.

  6. Beat the egg yolks, sugar, butter, lemon juice, and salt together.

  7. Add the beaten mixture to the thickened corn starch.

  8. Bring the combined mixture to a boil.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pre-bake the pie crust.

  2. Fill the pre-baked crust with the lemon mixture.

  3. Beat the egg whites with two tablespoons of sugar.

  4. Spread the meringue over the pie.

  5. Brown the meringue slightly in a 350°F (175°C) 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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 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

Corn starch
Thickens the lemon filling as it heats, giving it a smooth, sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and a custard-like set.
Egg whites
Whip into the meringue topping, giving it lightness and structure when browned.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the pie's flavor and balances the sugar.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rich mouthfeel in the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and stabilizes the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Bring the combined mixture to a boil. Egg yolks thicken only when heated enough, but overheating can curdle them. Boiling the starch-thickened mixture fully cooks the starch so the filling sets firm and glossy rather than runny.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, 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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