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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie made with grated lemon, sugar, butter, cornstarch, egg yolk, milk, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Boil the grated lemon with ⅔ cup of water for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Add 1 cup sugar, the juice of 1 lemon, and 2 tablespoons butter to the strained mixture.

  4. Boil for a few minutes.

  5. Mix 2 teaspoons cornstarch with 1 egg yolk in ½ cup milk.

  6. Stir into the boiling mixture until thick.

Prepare the frosting

  1. Beat 2 egg whites until stiff for the frosting.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lemon
Provides the main citrus flavour and tartness of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the lemon's acidity.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it boils, giving it a set, sliceable texture.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps thicken and enrich the custard filling.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the light frosting.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, rounder mouthfeel in the filling.

The step that matters

Stir the cornstarch mixture into the boiling filling until thick. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil, and it can clump if added without stirring. Stirring constantly distributes the starch evenly so the filling becomes smooth and thick rather than lumpy or thin.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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