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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie made with lemon rind, juice, sugar, eggs, cornstarch, butter, and boiled water, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated lemon rind, lemon juice, sugar, and egg yolks.

  2. Dissolve the cornstarch in a little water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Add a pinch of salt and the butter, then mix thoroughly.

  4. Stir the mixture into 1 pint of boiling water until it thickens.

  5. Cook in a double boiler until fully set.

Top and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites and use them to top the pie before serving.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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
Egg yolks thicken the filling and add richness; whipped whites form the topping.
Cornstarch
Starch gelatinises when heated, thickening the lemon filling so it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the flavour of the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until fully set. Cornstarch needs to reach a boil to thicken fully, while gentle indirect heat keeps the egg yolks from scrambling. Stopping too early leaves a runny filling; cooking too hard curdles the eggs.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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