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Dessert

Lemon Meringue

A pastry shell filled with lemon custard and topped with browned meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Meringue

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crust

  1. For the pie crust, rub together lard, butter, flour, and salt, then moisten with ice water until the dough holds together.

  2. Roll out the dough and fit it into a deep pie plate, pricking the bottom and sides with a fork, then bake in a moderate oven.

Make the filling

  1. Mix sugar and flour together, then slowly add water, beaten egg yolks, lemon juice, grated rind, and butter.

  2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, then pour into a baked pastry shell.

Top and brown

  1. For the meringue, beat egg whites until very stiff, then stir in the sugar.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites over the top and brown 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 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. Lemon + buttertop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and add richness as they set with the hot lemon mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping and browns in the oven.
Flour
Stabilizes the lemon filling so it thickens without becoming runny.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, stirred into the whites, helps the meringue hold its structure.
Lemon juice and rind
Provides the sharp acidity and aroma that define the filling.
Lard and butter
Fat that keeps the pie crust tender and flaky.

The step that matters

Boiling the filling while stirring constantly. Starch thickens only when it reaches a boil, and stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom. Stopping early leaves the filling thin, while overcooking can break down the thickening and make it runny.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, butter. 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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