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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with a light meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon 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. In a bowl, beat together sugar, egg yolks, salt, and butter.

  2. In a saucepan, combine boiling water, lemon rind, and cornstarch dissolved in a little water; bring to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar mixture and lemon juice.

  4. Prepare your pie crust and pour the filling into it.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Bake until set, then remove from the oven.

  2. Beat the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks form and spread over the pie.

  3. Return to the oven and bake until the meringue is lightly 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. Butter + lemontop 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

Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and a custard-like body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon filling as it boils, giving it a sliceable set.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet filling and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff so they trap air and hold their shape. Underbeaten whites weep or collapse, and overbeaten whites turn grainy and dry.

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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