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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A tart lemon custard filling topped with stiff meringue baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Combine milk, sugar, corn starch, and salt in a double boiler.

  2. Cook for at least 15 minutes until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolks, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pie crust while hot.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until set.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Gradually add powdered sugar.

  4. Spread the meringue over the pie immediately after removing it from the oven.

  5. Return the pie to the oven to brown the meringue slightly.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens when heated.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and a smooth set.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling as it heats, giving it a sliceable body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that gives the filling its tart flavor.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to form the light, stable meringue topping.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it hold its stiff structure.

The step that matters

Spread the meringue while the pie is still hot from the oven. Meringue must be spread over the filling immediately so it bonds to the hot custard edge and seals, which helps prevent weeping and shrinkage.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, corn, 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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