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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A tart lemon custard baked in pastry and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Grate the lemon rinds into a dish, then cut the lemons in half and remove the seeds.

  2. Scoop the pulp and juice into the dish with a silver spoon.

  3. Add the sugar and water, wetting the corn starch with some of the water.

  4. Mix the corn starch with the yolks and one beaten egg white.

  5. Pour the mixture into two pastry-lined tins and bake.

Make and brown the meringue

  1. Beat the remaining egg whites, gradually stirring in 10 tablespoons of powdered sugar.

  2. Once the pies are done, spread the meringue over them and return to the oven until 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. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 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).

Lemon and sugar 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 sharp acidity and fragrant oil from the rind that flavor the filling.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling as they set, and whites whip into the light meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.
Corn starch
Thickens the lemon filling so it holds a firm, sliceable set when cooled.

The step that matters

Adding sugar to the egg whites. Stirring the powdered sugar in gradually while beating helps the whites form a stable foam that holds its shape and browns evenly without weeping or collapsing in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, corn. 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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