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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A baked lemon custard filling in a double crust pie.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn 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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Grate the rind of the lemon and remove the white skin.

  3. Dissolve the corn starch in a little cold water.

Make the filling

  1. Add the boiling water to the dissolved corn starch.

  2. Once cool, mix in the grated lemon, sugar, egg, and butter.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the prepared pie crust.

  2. Cover with the second crust, prick with a fork, 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. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (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

Lemon
Provides the main tartness and fragrance of the filling, especially from the grated rind.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the lemon's acidity.
Egg
Helps the filling set into a firm, sliceable custard as it bakes.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid so the filling holds its shape when cut.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, softer mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the egg. Adding egg to a very hot starch mixture can scramble it and leave lumps, so cooling first keeps the filling smooth and evenly set.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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