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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon filling

  1. Combine grated lemon rind, lemon juice, sugar, egg yolks, water, and corn starch in a small pot.

  2. Place the pot in boiling water and cook until the mixture thickens.

Bake and assemble

  1. Prepare a puff pastry crust.

  2. Bake the crust until light brown.

  3. Pour the thickened lemon mixture into the baked crust.

  4. Top with meringue.

  5. Lightly brown the meringue in the oven.

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 + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and add richness to the lemon custard.
Corn starch
Thickens the lemon mixture as it cooks, giving the filling its body.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharp acidity of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Provides the tart, acidic flavour that defines the filling.
Meringue
Forms a light, airy topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the lemon mixture until it thickens. Corn starch thickens only when it reaches a sufficient temperature with constant stirring, and the egg yolks can scramble if overheated. Cooking gently over boiling water and stopping once it thickens gives a smooth, set filling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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