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Dessert

Vermont Lemon Pie

A lemon pie made with lemon juice, rind, coffee sugar, eggs, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Vermont 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).

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg yolks well, then add the sugar and lemon juice and rind; stir thoroughly.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and gently fold them into the mixture.

  3. Add the sweet cream and mix gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and cover with another crust.

  2. Bake until 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 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).

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken and enrich the filling, while whipped whites add lightness and structure.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the pie's flavour and helps set the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the filling a softer, smoother texture.
Lemon rind
Adds fragrant lemon oils that boost aroma without adding extra acidity.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten egg whites gently. Whites hold air as a stiff foam, which gives the filling its lightness. Vigorous stirring knocks out that air, so the pie bakes up denser and less airy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, sugar, egg, cream. 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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