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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon pie with a buttery crust, lemon filling, and 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a pie crust.

  2. Grate the rind and juice the lemons.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine lemon juice, grated rind, sugar, salt, and butter; stir well.

  2. Add cornstarch and water, then boil in a double boiler.

Top and brown

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff and spread on top of the pie filling.

  2. Brown the egg whites under a broiler.

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. Butter + sugartop 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

Lemons
Provide the juice and rind that give the filling its bright, sour flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sourness of the lemon.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon mixture as it boils, giving the filling body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff topping that sets and browns for a light finish.

The step that matters

Brown the egg whites under a broiler. Meringue browns in seconds under a broiler, so it can scorch before it colours. Watch it closely and remove it once golden. Stiff, well-whipped whites hold their shape and brown evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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