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Dessert

Lemon Cream Pie

A tart filled with lemon custard topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Cream Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Juice the lemon and grate the rind.

  2. Combine milk, egg yolks, butter, and half of the sugar in a saucepan.

  3. Cook over medium heat until thickened.

  4. Add lemon juice and grated rind to the mixture when it is partly cooked.

Prepare the crust

  1. Prepare the pie crust separately by pricking it thickly with a fork to prevent blistering.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gradually add the remaining sugar to the beaten egg whites.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie.

  4. Bake at 300°F (150°C) until light 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk as they set with gentle heat, giving the filling its body.
Lemon
Provides the tart acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweet filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, in the meringue, helps the whites hold their stiff peaks.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they form the light, airy structure of the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the egg yolks thicken.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the filling a smooth, rich texture.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thickened. Egg yolks thicken the milk as their proteins set with gentle heat. Too much heat can curdle the yolks, leaving the filling grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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