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Lemon Custard Pie

A lemon custard pie with a baked crust and browned meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lemon Custard 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.

Prepare

  1. Grate the yellow part of the lemon peel and squeeze the juice.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Wet the cornstarch with a little cold water.

Make the custard

  1. Add boiling water to the cornstarch until thick.

  2. Stir in the lemon juice.

  3. Add the egg yolks and sugar.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites mixed with 1 tablespoon of sugar on top.

  3. Brown the topping in the oven.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the custard as it heats, giving it a firm, sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and a smooth custard texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff meringue topping that sets and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue stay glossy and stable.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the custard's flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornstarch with boiling water until thick. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and its granules swell and gelatinize. Stopping early leaves a thin filling that will not set properly once baked.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, 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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