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Dessert

Excellent Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue, baked until the meringue is lightly browned.

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 ↓

Excellent 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. Combine boiling water, cornstarch, and sugar in a saucepan. Cook for 3 minutes.

  2. Add beaten egg yolks, lemon juice, grated lemon rind, and butter. Cook for a few more minutes, but do not let it thicken.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pre-baked pie crust.

  2. Top with meringue made from the egg whites, slightly sweetened.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the meringue is light brown.

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. Butter + eggtop 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
Yolks enrich and thicken the filling, while whites whip into the meringue foam.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon filling as it heats with the liquid.
Lemon
Provides the acidity and bright lemon aroma that define the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharp lemon and sweeten the meringue.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling without letting it thicken too far. Egg yolks can curdle and turn grainy if overheated, while cornstarch needs enough heat to thicken fully. Cook gently, stirring, and stop once the filling is thick enough, so it stays smooth and can set properly as it cools.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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