Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Eemon 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
Grate the yellow part of the lemon rind, avoiding the white part.
Squeeze out the juice and finely chop the pulp.
In a bowl, combine the lemon juice, pulp, sugar, water, beaten egg, flour, and sweet cream.
Assemble and bake
Pour the mixture between two pie crusts.
Alternatively, beat the egg white with a little sugar and spread it over the top crust.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set, then return to the oven for a few minutes to brown the top.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Lemon
- Provides the sharp acidity and aroma that flavour the filling.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the filling and balances the sourness of the lemon.
- Egg
- Thickens the filling as it heats and helps it set.
- Flour
- Stabilises the filling and helps it hold its body when baked.
- Sweet cream
- Adds richness and fat, softening the filling's texture.
The step that matters
Baking until set. Egg proteins coagulate as the filling heats, so it must be baked until just set. Overbaking can make the egg curdle and weep liquid, leaving the filling grainy and watery.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour, cream):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, 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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