Skip to main content
Dessert

Lincoln Pie

A custard pie made with milk, cornstarch, sugar, lemon, and eggs, topped with frosted lemon icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lincoln Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a pot, bring 1 quart of milk to a boil.

  2. Dissolve cornstarch in 1 pint of milk and stir into the boiling milk.

  3. Add sugar, grated lemon peel, and a little salt.

  4. In a bowl, beat the yolks of 8 eggs and stir them into the milk mixture.

Bake the pies

  1. Cover pie plates with pastry and fill with the custard.

  2. Bake until set.

Frost and brown

  1. Beat the whites of 8 eggs to make a light frosting.

  2. Add lemon juice to the frosting and spread it on the pies.

  3. Brown the pies in the oven.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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

Milk
Forms the body of the custard and gives it a creamy, tender texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats, so the custard sets firm when cooled.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a smooth, rich filling.
Egg whites
Whip into a light frosting that gives a soft, airy topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the tartness of the lemon.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and aroma from the peel and juice.

The step that matters

Stir the cornstarch into boiling milk. Cornstarch must be fully dispersed and heated to a boil to thicken. Adding it to hot milk without first dissolving it in cold milk can cause lumps, and undercooking leaves the custard thin.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes