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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the filling

  1. Juice the lemons and combine with sugar, eggs, butter, flour, and boiling water in a double boiler.

  2. Cook the mixture until thick, stirring constantly.

  3. Pour the filling into two pie crusts.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until set.

  2. Beat the reserved egg whites until frothy.

  3. Gradually add 3 tablespoons sugar to the beaten whites.

  4. Spread the meringue over the pies.

  5. Return the pies to the oven until 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. Butter + flourtop 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. Egg + flourtop 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. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling as it cooks, and whites whip into the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, added to whites, stabilizes the meringue.
Lemons
Juice supplies the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Flour or corn starch
Starch thickens the filling as it cooks with the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thick. Starch must be fully heated in liquid to gelatinize and thicken the filling; stirring constantly prevents scorching and lumps, and the eggs need enough heat to thicken without curdling. Undercooked filling stays runny when cut.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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