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Dessert

Lemon Pie with Bread

A lemon pie made with bread crumbs, butter, sugar, eggs, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lemon Pie with Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a quart cup, combine the bread crumbs, lemon juice, half of the grated lemon rind, sugar, and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Add enough cold water to make a total of 1½ cups of mixture.

  4. Stir well and let it sit while you prepare the crust.

  5. If the bread crumbs are not soft, let the mixture sit a few more minutes.

  6. Before pouring the filling into the crust, stir in the melted butter.

Bake and top

  1. Bake for about 35 minutes.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add a small amount of sugar.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture on top of the baked pie and return it to the oven to brown quickly.

  4. 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 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

Bread crumbs
Form the body of the filling and absorb liquid to set it into a soft custard-like layer.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the filling, and whipped whites give the topping its light, stiff structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the beaten egg whites hold their stiff structure.
Lemon
Juice and rind add sharp acidity and bright lemon aroma to the filling.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smoother, tender texture.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff, then spread them on the baked pie. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks with sugar so they hold their shape and brown evenly; under-beaten or oily whites will weep or flatten in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, 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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