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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A citrus custard pie with a powdered cracker crust, topped with frothy egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, 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 rind of the lemons and squeeze out the juice.

  2. Combine the lemon juice, grated rind, sugar, and water in a bowl.

  3. Add the powdered crackers and 2 eggs, mixing well.

Bake and top

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg white until frothy, adding a little sugar.

  2. Pour the lemon mixture into a pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  3. Spread the beaten egg white on top and brown it under the broiler if desired.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Eggs
Set the filling as they cook, giving it a firm, sliceable structure.
Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity and aroma that define the pie's flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart filling and helps the beaten egg white hold its froth.
Powdered crackers
Absorb liquid and help thicken the filling as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as the filling heats, which firms it into a sliceable custard. Pulling the pie too early leaves the filling runny and it will not hold its shape when cut.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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