Why it works: Tea and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 610 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the crust
Combine biscuits and butter.
Press into a 20 cm (9 inch) pie dish, bringing it up the sides.
Place in fridge to chill while making the filling.
Make the filling
Beat cream cheese until smooth.
Add condensed milk, lemon rind and lemon juice, then add egg yolks one at a time, mixing well.
Pour into crust (note: this is a runny mixture).
Top and bake
Whip egg whites until stiff, then gradually add caster sugar.
Place spoonfuls of the egg white mixture all over the lemon mixture and smooth over to cover the lemon mixture.
Add your own design of peaks.
Bake for 10 minutes at 350 °F.
Chill well before serving.
This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.
Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Tea + lemontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together610 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + cream cheesetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,746 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Cream cheese + condensed milktop 6% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together165 recipes
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Condensed milk + sugartop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together804 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + eggtop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together118,511 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cream cheese
- Provides a rich, creamy body that gives the filling its dense texture.
- Condensed milk
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and its milk solids help the filling set.
- Eggs
- Egg yolks help bind and set the filling, while whipped whites form the meringue topping.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that gives the filling its tart flavour and helps it thicken.
- Graham cracker crumbs
- Form the crumb base that holds the crust together once pressed and chilled.
The step that matters
Whip the egg whites until stiff before adding sugar. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks, and sugar added gradually, so the foam holds its shape and the meringue bakes into a stable, glossy topping rather than weeping or collapsing.
“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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