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Dessert

Lemon Meringue Pie

A pie with a lemon custard filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Meringue Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Grate the rind and pulp of the lemons.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the grated lemon, sugar, butter, and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Add the boiling water and thicken the mixture with cornstarch over medium heat.

Make the meringue

  1. Prepare the meringue by beating the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar and beat well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the cooked lemon mixture into the baked pie crust, top with meringue, and brown 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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling while whites whip into a stable, airy meringue topping.
Cornstarch
Starch gelatinizes when heated with the liquid, thickening the lemon filling into a sliceable set.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemons
Provide the tart acidity and fragrant zest that flavor the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the lemon filling on the stove. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil and is stirred. Undercooked starch leaves a runny filling, while overcooking can break down its thickening power.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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