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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon pie with a meringue topping made from lemon juice, sugar, flour, milk, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Grate the rind of the lemon.

  2. Mix the lemon juice, sugar, flour, and milk together, leaving out the egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a deep pie plate lined with pastry.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and sweeten with 4 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Bake the pie until set, then spread the meringue on top and return to the oven to brown lightly.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
The whites whip into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping.
Flour
Thickens the lemon mixture so the filling sets into a firm, sliceable custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and the meringue, balancing the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon
Provides the acidity of the filling, and the grated rind adds aroma.
Milk
Adds moisture and body to the filling, softening its texture as it sets.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth. Stiff egg whites trap air in a stable foam, which gives the meringue its volume and light texture. Any trace of grease or yolk in the bowl can stop the whites from whipping properly, so the meringue may weep or collapse.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, 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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