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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie made with water, sugar, eggs, cornstarch, lemon juice and peel, and butter, baked in pie crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve cornstarch in cold water.

  2. In a pot, combine water, sugar, eggs, cornstarch mixture, lemon juice, lemon peel, and butter.

  3. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly.

  4. Let the mixture cool slightly.

Bake the pie

  1. Fill two pie crusts with the lemon filling and bake until the crusts are golden.

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

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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
Add richness and help thicken the filling as they set with heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling into a smooth, sliceable custard when heated.
Lemon juice
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and offsets the tartness of the lemon.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel in the filling.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Cornstarch needs to reach a full boil and be kept moving to thicken evenly. Stopping early leaves a runny filling, and stirring less may let it scorch or form lumps on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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