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Dessert

Lemon Pies

A lemon-flavored pie made with a crust, butter, sugar, egg, and lemon juice and rind, baked after cooling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve corn starch in cold water.

  2. Stir into boiling water.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add sugar and butter.

  5. Let cool.

  6. Add beaten egg, lemon juice, and grated rind.

Bake

  1. Pour mixture into a pie crust.

  2. Bake.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the filling as it heats, giving it a set, custard-like body.
Egg
Adds richness and helps the filling set as it bakes.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the pie's flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the lemon's tartness.
Butter
Adds fat for smooth texture and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Stir into boiling water. Corn starch must be fully hydrated and brought to a boil to thicken. If the starch mixture is not stirred smoothly into boiling water, it can clump and leave the filling lumpy or thin.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, egg, 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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