Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the crust
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Roll out the pie paste and spread it over the pie plate.
Bake until half done.
Cool.
Make the filling
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the powdered sugar until they are airy.
Add the milk and lemon juice, then mix well.
In another bowl, beat the egg whites with salt until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the egg whites into the lemon mixture.
Bake and serve
Pour the filling into the pie crust and bake until the filling is set.
If the top browns too quickly, cover it lightly with brown paper.
Let the pie cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring it to a plate.
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.
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 the filling and help it set into a creamy custard as it bakes.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the filling and give it an airy structure.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the filling and dissolves smoothly into the beaten yolks.
- Lemon juice
- Provides the sharp acidity that gives the pie its tangy flavour.
- Pie paste
- Forms the base crust that holds the filling while it bakes.
The step that matters
Fold the egg whites gently into the lemon mixture. Whipped egg whites hold their air through folding only if handled gently. Overmixing knocks out the air bubbles, so the filling becomes dense and loses its lightness.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk. 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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