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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A tart pie with lemon custard filling topped with meringue, baked in puff pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and milk 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 filling

  1. Grate the rind of the lemons.

  2. Squeeze the juice from the lemons.

  3. Chop the pulp finely.

  4. In a bowl, mix the lemon rind, juice, pulp, sugar, egg yolks, milk, and cornstarch until well combined.

Bake and top

  1. Cover your pie plates with puff pastry and fill them with the lemon mixture.

  2. Bake the pies in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then gradually add the sugar for frosting.

  4. Once the pies are baked, spread the meringue on top and return to the oven until golden brown.

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 + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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 lemon filling and add richness and a smooth custard body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk and lemon mixture so the filling sets when cooled.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to form the airy, browned meringue topping.
Lemons
Provide the sour acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped meringue.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until firm and glossy, and sugar added gradually, so the meringue holds its shape and browns evenly. Underwhipped or greasy whites will weep or collapse on the pie.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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