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Dessert

Delicious Lemon Pie

A lemon pie made with sugar, butter, lemon juice and rind, thickened with corn starch, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Delicious Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Beat four eggs.

  2. Place them in a double boiler, stirring in one cup of sugar, one tablespoonful of butter, lemon juice and a rind of lemon.

  3. Add one-fourth teaspoonful of salt.

  4. Add one-half cup of cold water very gradually.

  5. Stir until the mixture becomes very thick, like a drop batter.

Prepare the meringue

  1. Beat the whites of two eggs until stiff.

  2. Beat in two tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.

  3. Fold in one tablespoonful.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the pie crust, well pricked.

  2. When cool, pour the mixture into the crust.

  3. Cover with meringue.

  4. Brown in oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

684Calories
19 gProtein
18 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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 + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

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 build the structure of the meringue.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Corn starch
Thickens the lemon mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Butter
Adds richness and a softer, rounder mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Stir until very thick. Eggs thicken as they heat, but overheating can curdle them into a grainy texture. Stir steadily and remove from heat once the mixture coats a spoon.

“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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