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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie 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 cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

2 pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a double boiler, combine sugar, flour, beaten egg yolk, lemon juice, and sweet cream.

  2. Cook until thick, stirring occasionally.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare baked pie crusts.

  2. Pour the lemon filling into the crusts.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Spread the meringue over the top of the pies.

  5. Lightly brown the meringue in the oven.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg yolk
Thickens the filling as it cooks and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the lemon filling so it sets firm when cooled.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharp lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Provides the tart acidity that defines the filling.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the filling a smooth body.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to form the light, stable meringue topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thick. The yolk and flour must be cooked long enough to thicken the filling fully; undercooked yolk stays thin and the pie will not set when cooled. Stir gently to prevent scorching on the bottom of the double boiler.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, cream. 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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