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Dessert

Lemon Pie

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 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.

Make the filling

  1. Combine sugar, corn starch, and boiling water in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until clear.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Stir in lemon juice, lemon rind, and egg yolk.

  5. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add 2 teaspoons of sugar.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie.

  4. Return to the oven to 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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (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. 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

Corn starch
Thickens the boiling mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard as it cooks.
Egg yolk
Enriches the filling and helps it set into a creamy custard when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form the airy, stable meringue topping.
Lemon
Supplies the sharp acidity and aroma that define the filling's flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until clear. Corn starch must be fully heated so its granules swell and thicken the mixture. Undercooked starch leaves the filling thin and cloudy, and it may not set properly after baking.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, 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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