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Lemon Custard Pie

A custard pie made with lemon juice, egg yolk, sugar, sweet milk, and crushed crackers, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Custard Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine the egg yolk, sugar, sweet milk, rolled crackers, and lemon juice in a saucepan.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until thick, stirring constantly.

Assemble the pie

  1. Pour the thickened mixture into the previously baked pie crust.

  2. Top with the beaten egg white.

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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Egg yolk
Thickens the filling as it cooks and adds richness to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid base that cooks into a creamy custard.
Crackers
Rolled fine, they help thicken the filling and give it body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavour to the custard.
Egg white
Beaten and spread on top, it forms a light topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thick. Stirring constantly over medium heat keeps the egg yolk from scrambling or sticking to the pan, so the custard thickens smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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