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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with a stiff meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. 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 the filling

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the juice and rind of the lemons, sugar, milk, corn starch, and egg yolks until smooth.

  3. Divide the mixture into two pie crusts.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy, then add the powdered sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pies.

  3. Bake in the oven until the meringue is golden brown.

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and add richness to the lemon custard.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the light, stable meringue topping.
Corn starch
Thickens the lemon filling as it heats, giving it a sliceable body.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sourness of the lemon.
Lemon juice and rind
Provides the tart, aromatic lemon flavor that defines the pie.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff peaks form so the meringue holds its shape and browns evenly. Under-beaten whites will weep or slump, while a trace of fat or yolk in the bowl can stop them from whipping properly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, corn, 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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