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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A tart pie filled with lemon custard topped with a baked meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 349 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. Grate the rind of 1 lemon and juice both lemons.

  2. In a saucepan, combine lemon juice, grated rind, sugar, butter, and boiling water.

  3. In a small bowl, mix corn starch with a little cold water to dissolve, then add to the saucepan.

  4. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolks.

  6. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Top and bake

  1. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form, then spread over the filling.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until 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. Walnut + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  4. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide the sour, bright flavor that defines the pie.
White sugar
Sweetens the tart lemon filling and helps the meringue stay glossy.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.
Corn starch
Thickens the lemon mixture so it holds its shape when sliced.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thickened. Corn starch thickens only when the mixture gets hot enough while stirred, so stopping early leaves a runny filling. Stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Beansfits about as well

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