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Dessert

Lemon Pie Filling

A lemon pie with a buttery crust, lemon filling, and meringue topping.

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 Filling

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.

Prepare the crust

  1. Bake a good crust with two or three rims, pricking it in several places to let air escape.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, mix cornstarch and sugar, then add boiling water and salt; cook for 10 minutes, stirring until thickened.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in butter, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  3. Add beaten egg yolks and pour the mixture into the crust.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the top is light brown.

Top with meringue and bake

  1. For the meringue, whip egg whites with powdered sugar until very stiff.

  2. Spread meringue over the pie and bake in a cooled oven until the meringue is puffed and golden brown.

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. Butter + eggtop 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. Lemon + eggtop 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it cooks, giving it a sliceable, custard-like body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to form the airy, stable meringue topping.
Lemon juice
Provides the acidity that gives the filling its tart, bright flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites until very stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to a stable foam; under-whipped or greasy whites deflate and weep, while the sugar helps hold the foam together during baking.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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