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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A tart pie with lemon zest, juice, eggs, butter, and milk, finished with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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 peel of the lemons and squeeze out the juice.

  2. In a bowl, combine the lemon juice, grated peel, sugar, eggs, melted butter, and milk.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and egg whites separately.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Add 4 tablespoons of sugar to the egg whites and beat until stiff.

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

  3. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the pie and return to the oven to brown the top.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  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

Eggs
Egg proteins set the filling into a firm custard, and whipped whites give the topping its structure.
Lemons
Juice adds sharp acidity and the grated peel adds bright lemon aroma.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, tender texture.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Whipping traps air in the egg white proteins, forming a foam that holds peaks. Under-beaten whites weep or slump in the oven, and any fat or yolk in the bowl prevents them from whipping properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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