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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the lemon filling

  1. Mix cornstarch with a little milk.

  2. Heat the remaining milk until boiling, then stir in the cornstarch mixture and boil for 1 minute.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Add the egg yolks, ½ cup sugar, and the grated lemon rind and juice, then beat well.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Line a deep pie plate with pastry and fill it with the lemon mixture.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, gradually add the remaining ½ cup sugar, and spread the meringue over the pie.

  4. Brown slowly.

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

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the lemon filling and egg whites whip into the meringue topping.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk and lemon mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard when heated.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, when whipped with egg whites, stabilises the meringue.
Lemon
Provides the sharp acidity and aroma that define the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the filling that thickens into custard.

The step that matters

Boil the cornstarch mixture for 1 minute. Cornstarch only reaches full thickening once it boils, and the starch must be fully cooked for the filling to set firm and not taste raw or runny.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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