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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A custard pie made with eggs, sugar, water, cornstarch, butter, and lemon zest and juice, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Beat all yolks and 1 egg white until very smooth.

  2. Add the grated peel of 1 lemon and the sugar, then beat well.

  3. Stir in the cornstarch.

  4. Add the lemon juice, butter, and lastly the water.

  5. Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

Bake and serve

  1. Line 2 pie tins with pie crust and bake until golden.

  2. Once baked, fill the crusts with the lemon mixture.

  3. Cover with the beaten egg whites and return to the oven to brown slightly.

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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon 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
Yolks thicken the filling and give it richness, while whipped whites form the browned topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharp lemon juice.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon mixture as it cooks so it sets into a sliceable filling.
Lemons
Provide the acidity and aroma of the filling, from both juice and grated peel.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a simmer while being stirred constantly. Stopping early leaves a runny filling, and letting it sit without stirring can scorch the bottom and cause lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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