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Dessert

Meringue Pie

A pie with a lemon cream filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,640 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Meringue 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Cover pie plates with the pie crust.

  3. Fill the crusts with lemon cream.

Top and bake

  1. Spread a layer of meringue on top of the lemon cream.

  2. Decorate the top with additional meringue.

  3. Return the pies to the oven and bake until the meringue is browned.

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. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 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

Pie crust
Forms the base that holds the filling in its shape.
Lemon cream
Provides the set, tart filling under the meringue.
Meringue
Forms the topping that browns in the oven for a soft, sweet layer.

The step that matters

Baking the meringue until browned. Meringue needs enough oven heat to cook through and brown; underbaking leaves it weepy or soft, while overbaking can make it tough and cause sugar syrup to bead on the surface.

“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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