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Lemon Pie--Granella Crust

A lemon pie with a granella crust, filled with a lemon‑sugar custard and topped with a meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lemon Pie--Granella Crust

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Flavor sugar with oil of lemons (p. 27), add flour, mixing well.

  2. Pour the perfectly boiling water over, stirring until smooth.

  3. Boil, add the slightly beaten yolks, lemon juice and salt.

  4. Heat just enough to set the egg.

  5. Turn the filling into the baked granella crust and spread quickly around the edges so as to touch the top of the crust.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat whites with a little salt to moderately stiff froth.

  2. Add lemon juice and beat stiff.

  3. Fold in the sugar.

  4. Drop by spoonfuls on the hot pie.

  5. Brown delicately on top in the oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

139Calories
7 gProtein
5 gFat
17 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
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 Evora Bucknum Perkins. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Egg + lemontop 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling when gently heated, and whites whip into the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, folded into the whites, stabilizes the meringue.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the filling with the boiling water to give it body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that gives the filling its tart flavor.

The step that matters

Heat just enough to set the egg. Egg yolks thicken at a moderate temperature and turn grainy or curdle if overheated, so the filling should be heated only until it sets.

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.

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