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Dessert

Acid Pie

A pie made with soft bread or crackers, sugar, water, lemon juice, egg, and tartaric acid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Acid 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the soft bread or crackers, sugar, and water.

  3. Add the lemon juice and mix well.

Finish and bake

  1. Beat the egg and fold it into the mixture.

  2. Stir in the tartaric acid.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and bake for 30-40 minutes 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 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. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Soft bread or crackers
Soak up liquid and give the filling body and a soft, thick texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharp flavour of the lemon and tartaric acid.
Lemon juice
Provides fresh acidity and the main sour flavour of the pie.
Egg
Sets during baking, helping the filling firm up into a sliceable custard-like body.
Tartaric acid
Adds a concentrated, sharp sourness that reinforces the lemon's tang.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as the filling heats, so underbaking leaves a runny centre while overbaking can make it weep and turn rubbery. Check that the middle barely wobbles before removing the pie from the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Datesfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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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