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Lemon Meringue Pie

A baked pie with lemon custard filling topped with stiff‑popped meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lemon Meringue 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.

Make the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add water, sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Stir until smooth.

  3. Cook over medium heat until thickened, then remove from heat.

  4. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and gradually add the lemon juice and zest.

  5. Combine the egg mixture with the thickened mixture and pour into a pie crust.

  6. Bake for 10 minutes until set.

Top with meringue and bake

  1. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie filling, sealing the edges.

  3. Bake for an additional 10 minutes until the meringue is golden.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + lemontop 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. Butter + sugartop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and enrich it, giving it a rich, custard-like body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it cooks, giving it a smooth, sliceable set.
Lemon juice
Adds the sharp acidity that defines the filling's bright flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped meringue.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites so the meringue holds its peaks.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil and the mixture has cooked long enough. Undercooked starch leaves a runny filling that will not set when cut.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cream. 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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