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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A tart pastry filled with a lemon custard and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a small bowl, stir the corn starch into the cold water until smooth.

  2. Add the mixture to the boiling water and let it come to a boil.

  3. Stir in the sugar, egg yolks, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  4. Pour the filling into a prepared pie crust and bake until set.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie filling and brown it in the oven.

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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

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

Corn starch
Thickens the lemon filling as it heats, giving it a set, sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and a smooth custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to form a light, airy meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, in the meringue, stabilises the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Bringing the starch mixture to a boil. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil. Stirred in cold water first, it stays smooth, so the mixture must be brought to a full boil to set the filling properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, 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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