Skip to main content
Dessert

Lemon Custard Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue, baked until the meringue sets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Lemon Custard 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 with the flour in a bowl.

  2. Add the grated lemons and hot water to the mixture and stir until combined.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

  2. Gradually add 3 tablespoons of sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the lemon mixture into pie crusts to make two pies.

  2. Spread the meringue over the top of the pies.

  3. Bake in the oven for a few minutes, just until the meringue is set but not browned.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 the lemon filling and whites whip into the meringue that gives the topping its structure.
Flour
Starch thickens the lemon mixture so it sets into a sliceable custard rather than running.
Sugar
Sweetens the pie and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites in the meringue.
Lemons
Grated lemon supplies the acidity and aroma that define the filling's flavour.
Hot water
Adds liquid that loosens the batter so it spreads into the crusts and cooks evenly.

The step that matters

Bake the meringue just until set and not browned. Heat sets the egg white proteins into a stable foam, but overbaking toughens them, causes weeping, and browns the sugar, so the meringue should be removed as soon as it firms.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes