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Dessert

Lemon Pie, Ob Pudding

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pie, Ob Pudding

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 the filling

  1. Grate the rind of the lemons, squeeze the juice, and chop the pulp finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the lemon rind, juice, pulp, sugar, egg yolks, milk, and cornstarch. Mix well.

Bake the pies

  1. Line deep pie plates with puff pastry, fill with the lemon mixture, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

Top with meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites with 6 tablespoons of sugar until frothy.

  2. Once the pies are baked, spread the meringue over them and return to the oven for 5 minutes.

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 + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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).

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 the filling and add richness and a smooth, custard-like texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon mixture as it heats so the filling sets rather than runs.
Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity and bright aroma that define the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart lemon filling and helps stabilise the beaten egg white meringue.
Milk
Adds moisture and body to the filling, softening its tartness.

The step that matters

Beating the meringue. Egg whites must be beaten with sugar until glossy and stiff enough to hold peaks. Under-beaten whites weep or collapse, while the sugar helps the foam stay stable and glossy during baking.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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