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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with a glossy meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. 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.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with ½ cup sugar until well combined.

  2. Add flour and corn starch dissolved in a little milk.

  3. Pour the mixture into 1 pint of boiling milk.

  4. Cook for about 3 minutes.

  5. Stir in the juice and grated rind of 1 lemon.

  6. Pour the filling into a baked pie crust.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gradually add ½ cup sugar and mix until glossy.

  3. Spread the meringue on top of the pie filling.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the meringue is slightly 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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard filling and add richness and colour.
Flour
Helps thicken the filling so it cuts cleanly when set.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard filling.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to form the airy meringue topping.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright flavour that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the starch mixture to boiling milk. Starch must be fully cooked in hot liquid to thicken properly. Pouring it in dissolved and cooking briefly lets the starch gelatinise, so the filling sets smooth rather than lumpy or runny.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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