Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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.
Prepare the filling
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the lemon rind and juice, sugar, egg yolks, and salt.
In a saucepan, combine milk and cornstarch, and heat until it thickens and boils.
Stir the thickened milk into the lemon mixture.
Bake and top
Pour the filling into a pie crust and bake until set.
Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until stiff peaks form.
Spread the meringue over the pie and brown it in the oven.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 as they set and add richness.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the milk when heated, giving the filling body.
- Lemon
- Provides the sharp acidity and bright aroma of the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling to balance the lemon's tartness.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that gives the meringue its structure and volume.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid and body that the cornstarch thickens into a creamy filling.
The step that matters
Heat the milk and cornstarch until it boils. Cornstarch only reaches full thickening once the mixture boils. If it is removed early, the filling stays thin and may not set properly in the pie.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, 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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