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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A sweet pie with a lemon custard filling and a crumbly Boston cracker topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the filling

  1. Mix the powdered sugar and butter until well combined.

  2. Beat the eggs and add them to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Stir in the cream or milk, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind.

  4. Add the additional cream and the grated Boston crackers.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 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

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set into a firm custard when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and dissolves smoothly into the butter.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity that gives the pie its tart lemon flavor.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness to the filling.
Boston crackers
Add body and help thicken the filling as they absorb liquid.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, turning the liquid filling firm. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it weep or crack.

Swap the lemon

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