Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make and bake the filling
In a bowl, mix the lemon rind, lemon juice, egg yolks, butter, sugar, and sweet milk until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.
Top and brown
In another bowl, beat the egg whites with the sugar until stiff peaks form.
Spread the meringue on top of the baked pie and brown slightly in the oven.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 filling as they set, giving it a rich, custard-like body.
- Lemon juice
- Provides the sharp acidity that defines the pie's flavour and helps balance the sweetness.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender, smooth texture and rich mouthfeel in the filling.
- Egg whites
- Whipped with sugar to form a stable, airy meringue that browns on top.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and, when beaten with whites, stabilises the meringue.
The step that matters
Beating the meringue to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff peaks form, because the whipped foam traps air and holds the meringue's shape. Underbeaten whites stay runny and may weep or collapse, while the sugar helps keep the foam stable.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, milk. 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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