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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue.

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

Make the filling

  1. Combine lemon juice, grated rind, sugar, egg yolks, egg white, and butter in a dish. Stir well.

  2. Mix cornstarch with cold water in a separate cup. Heat and stir until thick like custard.

  3. Pour the thickened mixture into the lemon mixture and beat together.

Bake and top

  1. Line a pie plate with pie crust, building up the edge with 3 or 4 layers of crust, wetting between each layer.

  2. Pour the lemon mixture into the crust and bake until cooked.

  3. Remove from the oven and cover with meringue made from 2 egg whites and 1 tablespoon sugar.

  4. Return to the oven and brown the meringue.

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. Sugar + buttertop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set and add richness to the custard.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon mixture when heated with water, giving the filling body.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the meringue.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that sets into the meringue topping and browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother texture and richer flavor in the filling.

The step that matters

Heat the cornstarch mixture until thick. Cornstarch only thickens once heated enough for its granules to swell and gelatinize. Stopping early leaves the filling thin and runny, and it may not hold its shape when sliced.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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