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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A baked lemon custard pie topped with sweetened meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. 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 pie pan with the crust and prick it with a fork.

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

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix corn starch with cold water until smooth.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the corn starch mixture, powdered crackers, boiling water, sugar, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind.

  3. Cook for a few minutes until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks.

  5. Pour the filling into the baked crust.

Top and brown

  1. Top with the beaten and sweetened egg whites.

  2. Brown the pie slightly in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the lemon filling, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling as it cooks, giving it a smooth, sliceable set.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour to the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped and sweetened, they form the light, airy meringue topping.
Powdered crackers
Add body to the filling, helping it set and thicken.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thickened before adding the egg yolks. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and is held there briefly. Adding the yolks off the heat keeps them from scrambling and curdling, so the filling stays smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, 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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