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Dessert

Frosted Lemon Pie

A pie with lemon filling topped with meringue frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Frosted Lemon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the lemon juice, grated lemon rind, 8 tablespoons of sugar, melted butter, sweet cream, yolks of 3 eggs, and the white of 1 egg. Mix until well combined and pour into a pie crust.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. In another bowl, beat the whites of 2 eggs until soft peaks form, then gradually add 4 tablespoons of sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue over the lemon filling.

  3. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the meringue is lightly browned.

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. 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the lemon filling and give it a rich, custard-like body.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the filling and meringue.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, when beaten with egg whites, stabilizes the meringue.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the light, stable meringue topping.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness to the lemon filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the meringue to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be beaten gradually with sugar until stiff and glossy; under-beaten whites weep and slump, while any trace of fat or yolk prevents them from whipping properly.

Swap the lemon

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

  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, cream, 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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