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Dessert

Lemon Pies

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Grate the zest from the lemons and chop the lemon flesh finely.

  2. Stir corn starch into hot water, then boil the mixture.

  3. Add sugar to the mixture and let it cool.

  4. Mix in the beaten yolks and chopped lemon, then stir well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line two pie plates with crusts.

  2. Pour in the lemon mixture and bake until set.

Make and add the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites with sugar until frothy.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pies and bake until 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 + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

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

Corn starch
Thickens the hot water into a stable, sliceable lemon filling as it boils.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the filling into a custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the structure of the meringue topping.
Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity and bright aroma that define the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Boil the cornstarch mixture fully. Cornstarch only thickens once it boils and its granules swell and gelatinise. If the mixture stays below a boil, the filling will stay thin and may not set properly in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, 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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