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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 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.

Make the filling

  1. Grate the lemon and mix it with hot water, sugar, egg yolks, and butter.

  2. Stir in flour mixed with a little cold water until smooth.

Fill and bake

  1. Line two pie pans with crust and divide the lemon mixture between them.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then gradually add 4 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the baked pies and return to the oven to brown slightly.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Lemon
Provides acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness of the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set and add richness and colour.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it sets into a sliceable custard.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the filling.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the structure of the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, added gradually, stabilises the meringue foam.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be whipped until firm before sugar is added gradually. Sugar dissolves into the foam and helps it hold its shape. Under-whipped or unstable meringue can weep or collapse in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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