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Dessert

Lemon Cream Pie Filling

A lemon custard filling thickened with cornstarch, sweetened with sugar, finished with a browned meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Cream Pie Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix the grated rind and juice of one lemon with cornstarch and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Add boiling water and boil for a few moments, stirring constantly.

  3. Add butter just before removing from heat.

  4. When slightly cool, stir in the beaten egg yolks.

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

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then add sugar.

  2. Spread the egg whites over the filling and return to the oven to brown.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the custard filling, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon filling as it boils, giving it a sliceable set.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that forms the topping and browns in the oven.
Lemon
Provides the bright acidity and aroma that define the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring while the filling boils. Cornstarch thickens only when heated and stirred, and it can clump or scorch on the pan bottom if left still. Constant stirring keeps the filling smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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