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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard filling topped with a sweet meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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

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 sugar, egg yolks, lemon juice, butter, cream, salt, and flour mixed with a little water in a double boiler.

  2. Cook until thick, stirring occasionally, then remove from heat.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg white.

Prepare the crust

  1. Pre-bake the pie crust.

  2. Fill the crust with the lemon mixture.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the filling.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the meringue is golden 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 lemon filling as they set with heat, adding richness.
Flour
Stabilises the filling so it becomes thick and sliceable rather than runny.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam that sets into a light, stable meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg white meringue.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thick. Egg yolks and flour thicken only when heated enough. Undercooked filling stays runny and will not hold its shape when sliced, while overheating can curdle the yolks.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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