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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A pie with a cooked lemon filling made from lemon, sugar, cornstarch, butter and egg, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon filling

  1. Mix the cornstarch with a little cold water.

  2. Add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar and creamed butter.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the mixture.

Bake the crust

  1. Line pie pans with pastry rolled to ¼ inch thick and prick the bottom.

  2. Bake the pastry until almost done, then fill with lemon filling.

  3. Continue baking until the pastry is fully cooked.

Top and serve

  1. Make a meringue by beating the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 2 tablespoons powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie and cook slowly until slightly browned.

  3. Serve cold.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 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).

Sugar and lemon 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling water into a smooth, sliceable lemon filling.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and thicken the filling; whites whip into the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the meringue.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother texture to the filling.
Lemon
Supplies the rind and juice that give the filling its tart, bright flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the meringue slowly until lightly browned. Meringue sugar and egg proteins can weep or toughen under high heat, so a slow bake sets the topping and browns it gently without leaving it wet underneath.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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