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Dessert

Lemon Crumb Pie

A lemon crumb pie with a buttery, sweet filling and a frosted top.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lemon Crumb Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a quart cup, combine melted butter, cold water, lemon juice, lemon rind, and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Stir in bread crumbs and sugar.

  3. Cook the mixture over simmering water until thickened.

Assemble and finish

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

  2. Frost the pie with the beaten egg whites.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 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
Yolks thicken the filling as they cook, and whites form the topping.
Bread crumbs
Give the filling body and absorb liquid as it thickens.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the lemon's acidity.
Lemon
Provides juice and rind for sharp, aromatic flavor.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over simmering water until thickened. Egg yolks set when heated gently. Overheating or boiling can curdle them, leaving a grainy filling instead of a smooth, thick one.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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