Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Pie
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
Juice the lemons and set aside the juice and grated rind.
In a bowl, mix the sugar, egg yolks, milk, and flour until smooth.
Bake and brown
Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.
Spread the beaten egg whites over the top and return to the oven to brown.
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 as they heat and set it into a smooth custard, adding richness.
- Flour
- Thickens the filling by absorbing liquid and swelling when heated, giving body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the lemon.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that sets and browns on top, forming a light topping.
- Lemons
- Provide the tart acidity and fragrant aroma from the juice and grated rind.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the filling that the other ingredients set into.
The step that matters
Bake until just set. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, so the filling sets at a moderate temperature. Overbaking can make the custard curdle, weep liquid or turn grainy, while underbaking leaves it runny.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour. 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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