Skip to main content
Dessert

Eemox Pie

A lemon pie with a meringue topping made from lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch, butter, eggs, and baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fayette (Mo.). Baptist Church, Ladies of the · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Eemox Pie

two pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put three large lemons in the oven and heat them.

  2. Squeeze out the juice.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the rind in half pint of water.

  2. Add the juice and water to a mixture of two cups of sugar, one tablespoon of cornstarch dissolved in milk, one of butter, and yolks of six eggs.

Bake and top

  1. Bake the mixture in a crust.

  2. Beat the whites with half cup of sugar.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pies and brown slightly.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

594Calories
20 gProtein
7 gFat
112 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 6 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0
Pienot 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 Fayette (Mo.). Baptist Church, Ladies of the. 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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

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

Lemons
Provide the juice and rind that give the pie its sharp, bright flavour.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling and whites whip into the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the whites form a stable, glossy meringue.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape when cut.

The step that matters

Thickening the filling. Cornstarch thickens only when its starch granules swell in heat. If the filling is not hot enough or cooked long enough, it stays runny and may not set once cooled.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes