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Dessert

Lemon Tarts

A tart with a lemon custard filling and meringue topping baked in a short pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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 Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine water, grated lemon, lemon rind, sugar, and the yolks of the eggs.

  2. Add cornstarch and mix well; bring to a boil.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake the short pie crust in gem pans until golden.

  2. Fill the baked crusts with the custard mixture.

  3. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  4. Spread the meringue over the custard and place in 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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 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).

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 the custard and add richness and a smooth, creamy body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon custard so it sets firm when cooled.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the whipped egg white meringue.
Lemons
Provide the acidic, aromatic lemon flavour of the custard.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the meringue topping and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Bring the custard to a boil after adding cornstarch. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil, so stopping early leaves a runny custard. Stir constantly to avoid lumps and scorching on the base of the pan.

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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