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Lemon Meringue Pie

A pie with lemon custard filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Meringue 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.

Make the lemon filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lemon rind and juice, sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, and hot water.

  2. Mix well and bring to a boil, stirring constantly until thickened.

Prepare the meringue

  1. Pre-bake the pie crust according to package instructions.

  2. Pour the lemon filling into the pre-baked crust.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread the meringue over the lemon filling and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until lightly browned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and add richness and a custard-like texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon filling as it heats, giving it a sliceable body.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the meringue topping, setting and browning in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.
Lemon
Provides the tart acidity and aroma that flavor the filling.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Egg whites must be whipped to a stable foam before sugar is added gradually. Under-whipped or greasy whites will weep or collapse, and any trace of yolk or fat prevents them from reaching full volume.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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