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Filling for Lemon Pie

A citrusy filling made from lemon juice, flour, sugar, butter, hot water, and eggs, baked into a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Filling for Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Juice the lemons and set aside.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the lemon juice, flour, sugar, butter, and hot water.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  5. Beat the eggs and fold them into the lemon mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the filling into a pre-baked pie crust.

  2. Bake until set, then top with whipped egg whites if desired.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity and lemon aroma that flavour the filling.
Flour
Thickens the lemon mixture as it cooks, giving the filling body.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the lemon juice.
Eggs
Set the filling when baked, giving it a sliceable, custard-like structure.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it thickens. Flour thickens only when the mixture is cooked long enough, and stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan. Undercooked filling stays runny and may not set properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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