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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon pie made with lemon juice, rind, eggs, butter, sugar, milk, and baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Prepare the filling

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the lemon juice, grated rind, eggs, butter, sugar, and milk.

Bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Set the filling and add richness, with beaten whites giving lightness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the lemon's acidity.
Lemon
Provides the tart acidity and bright aroma of the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and body, giving the filling a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that gives the pie its lightness. Stirring or folding roughly knocks that air out, so the filling turns dense instead of airy. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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