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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon pie with a meringue topping made from sugar, cornstarch, lemon peel, orange juice, egg yolks, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Prepare the filling by mixing sugar and cornstarch in a bowl.

  2. Add the grated lemon peel and orange juice to the mixture.

  3. Incorporate the egg yolks into the filling and mix well.

  4. Pour the filling into a pie crust and bake until set.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. For the meringue, beat the reserved egg whites until stiff peaks form, then add powdered sugar gradually.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie and decorate with glazed oranges if desired.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  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. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  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

Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the lemon and orange flavours balance their tartness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it heats, so the pie sets into a sliceable custard.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it thicken into a smooth, set custard when baked.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and citrus flavour that cuts through the sweetness of the filling.
Lemon peel
Adds aromatic lemon oils that give the filling its fragrance.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and dissolves easily into the whipped whites.

The step that matters

Bake the filling until set. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the filling reaches a hot simmer, and egg yolks need heat to set. An underbaked filling stays runny and will weep or slump when sliced.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, egg):

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, 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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