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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A tart lemon custard baked in a crust and topped with a sweet meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Grate the outer peel of the lemons and chop the rest very fine.

  2. In a saucepan, mix corn starch with hot water and boil until thickened.

  3. Once cool, add white sugar, beaten egg yolks, chopped peel, and lemon juice; stir well.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until the crust is done.

  2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then gradually add powdered sugar while stirring.

  3. Pour the meringue over the hot pie and return to the oven to 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. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 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 and enrich the filling, giving it richness and a smooth set.
Corn starch
Thickens the hot water into a paste that gives the filling its body.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to form the light, stable meringue topping.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavor to the filling.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the whipped whites, sweetening and stabilizing the meringue.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks before sugar is added gradually. Under-whipped or greasy whites will weep or collapse, and sugar added too early can slow foaming.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, 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.

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