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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue, baked in a puff pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the crust

  1. Line a deep pie plate with rich puff pastry.

  2. Bake until light brown at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Make the lemon cream

  1. Grate the peel of the lemon and squeeze out the juice.

  2. Place the lemon in a cup of boiling water to extract more juice.

  3. Combine the boiling water, lemon juice, grated peel, and sugar in a pot and bring to a boil.

  4. Beat the egg yolks until light, then gradually add the boiling lemon mixture.

  5. Return to the kettle and boil again.

  6. Wet 1 teaspoon of cornstarch with a little cold water and add it along with the butter to the boiling mixture.

  7. Once thickened, remove from heat and let cool.

  8. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold half into the lemon mixture and reserve the rest.

  9. Pour the lemon cream into the baked pie crust.

Top with meringue and bake

  1. Mix the reserved egg whites with powdered sugar and cream of tartar, adding more egg whites for a thicker meringue if desired.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie and bake for 2-3 minutes at 400°F (200°C), keeping the oven door slightly open to prevent over-browning.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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 lemon filling and add richness as they cook with the hot mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff foam to form the airy structure of the meringue topping.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon mixture into a smooth, sliceable cream when boiled.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the sharp acidity of the lemon.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites so the meringue holds its volume.
Lemon
Provides the bright acidity and aroma that flavor the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks to the boiling lemon mixture. Pouring hot liquid into yolks too quickly can scramble them. Adding it gradually while whisking tempers the yolks so the filling thickens smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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