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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie with a buttery filling and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mix cornstarch with cold water.

  2. Pare the rind of the lemons thinly.

  3. Steep the lemon rind in boiling water for 10 minutes.

  4. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs.

  5. Squeeze the lemons.

Make the filling

  1. Pour boiling water over the cornstarch mixture.

  2. Cook for 1-2 minutes until clear and thick.

  3. Add sugar and stir for 1 minute.

  4. Add egg yolks and cook for another minute.

  5. Stir in lemon juice and butter.

  6. Remove from heat and let the mixture cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the baked pastry shell with the mixture.

  2. Use the egg whites to make meringue.

  3. Brown the meringue in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling and whites form the meringue topping.
Cornstarch (in the method)
Swells with heat to thicken the filling into a sliceable custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the meringue.
Lemons
Juice gives the filling its sharp acidity; rind adds aroma.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thick. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and is cooked for long enough, so stopping early leaves the filling runny. Egg yolks added to hot filling are also cooked by it and can curdle if the heat is too high.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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