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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon pie with a meringue topping made from lemon juice, rind, sugar, milk, eggs, corn starch, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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.

Make the filling

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the lemon juice, grated rind, sugar, sweet milk, egg yolks, corn starch, and butter until smooth.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the baked pie 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling while whites whip into a stable, airy meringue topping.
Corn starch
Gelatinizes when heated, thickening the lemon filling so it holds a sliceable set.
Lemon
Juice and rind provide the sharp acidity and bright aroma that define the pie.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, when whipped with egg whites, stabilizes the meringue.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks with sugar added gradually, which stabilizes the foam. Under-beaten or greasy whites will weep or collapse in the oven, and any yolk or fat in the bowl will prevent them from whipping properly.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, milk, egg, corn, butter. 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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