Why it works: Milk and butter 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.
Prepare the filling
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the egg yolks, butter, and sugar until light.
Grate the rind and squeeze the juice of the lemons. Add the lemon juice and rind to the mixture.
Stir in the milk.
Top and bake
Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add the powdered sugar.
Spread the egg white mixture on top of the pie filling.
Bake until set and lightly browned.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 whipped to soft peaks form the light topping.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps the egg yolks blend smoothly with the butter.
- Lemons
- Provide the sharp acidity and aroma of the filling through juice and rind.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and body to the filling, giving it a soft, custard-like texture.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
- Powdered sugar
- Dissolves easily into the whipped whites, sweetening and stabilizing the meringue topping.
The step that matters
Bake until set and lightly browned. Baking sets the egg-thickened filling and browns the whipped egg white topping. Underbaking leaves the filling runny, while overbaking can make the meringue weep or toughen.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, egg, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, 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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