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Lemon Meringue Pie

A pie with lemon custard filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Meringue Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the water and sugar together.

  2. Add the cornstarch moistened with a little cold water and cook for five minutes.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon rind, and salt.

  4. Cool slightly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pre-baked pie crust.

  2. Make meringue by beating the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set and lightly 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. 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, sliceable custard as it heats.
Eggs
Egg yolks help thicken and enrich the filling; whites whip into the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, when beaten with egg whites, stabilizes the meringue.
Lemon
Provides the bright acidity and aroma that define the filling's flavor.

The step that matters

Cool slightly before topping. Spreading meringue over a filling that is still very hot can make the meringue weep or slide, and the filling must be thick enough to hold its shape. Cooling slightly lets the starch-thickened custard set before the topping goes on.

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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