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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon pie with a pastry crust and lemon custard filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Make a rough puff pastry with flour, baking powder, and butter.

  3. Add a little water as needed to the pastry.

  4. Line an oven tin with the pastry. Reserve scraps for decoration.

Make the filling

  1. Grate the lemon rind.

  2. Strain the juice into a saucepan.

  3. Add water, sugar, cornflour, and butter to the saucepan.

  4. Stir the mixture over heat until it boils.

  5. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs.

  6. Drop in the yolks one at a time once the mixture is off the boil.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the filling into the lined tin.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes.

  3. Decorate the top with the reserved pastry scraps.

  4. Whip the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  5. Spread the whipped egg whites over the top.

  6. Dust with sugar.

  7. Allow to harden.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry case that holds the filling.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the pastry tender and flaky as it bakes.
Cornflour
Thickens the lemon juice and water mixture into a smooth, sliceable filling.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling and whites form the airy, set topping.
Lemon
Supplies the acidity and bright aroma that define the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the egg white topping hold and brown.

The step that matters

Drop in the yolks one at a time once the mixture is off the boil.. Egg yolks scramble and curdle when exposed to high heat. Removing the mixture from the boil before adding them lets the yolks thicken it smoothly instead of leaving lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, 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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