Skip to main content
Dessert

Lemon Pie

A citrus custard pie with lemon rind, yolks, sugar, butter, water, corn starch, and a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Grate the rind of the lemon and squeeze out the pulp and juice.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the lemon juice, grated rind, egg yolks, sugar, butter, and water.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil, then stir in the corn starch that has been wet with cream.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pre‑bake the pie crust, then pour in the filling.

  2. Beat the egg whites with a little powdered sugar until stiff peaks form, then spread over the top of the pie.

  3. Bake in the oven until the top is lightly browned.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Walnut + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

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

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

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 and a smooth custard texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the lemon mixture into a sliceable filling as it heats.
Lemon
Provides the sharp acidity and bright lemon flavor of the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff meringue that forms the light topping and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the acidity of the lemon.

The step that matters

Stirring in the corn starch. Corn starch must be fully dispersed, which is why it is wetted with cream first. Added dry, it clumps and leaves lumps, and the filling will not thicken evenly. Keep the mixture boiling while stirring so the starch gelatinizes fully and sets the filling.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

More lemon pie recipes

Filling 23Apple 11Raisin 4 See all 602 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipes