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Dessert

Lemon Cream Pie

A pie with a lemon custard filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in the cold water.

  3. Stir the dissolved corn starch into the boiling water until smooth.

  4. Pour the corn starch mixture over the creamed butter and sugar. Mix well.

  5. Stir in the grated lemon rind, lemon juice, and beaten egg.

Bake and finish

  1. Line a pie plate with puff pastry.

  2. Fill the pastry with the lemon mixture.

  3. Bake until set.

  4. Cover with meringue.

  5. Return to the oven to brown lightly.

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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the filling as it cooks, giving it a smooth, sliceable set.
Egg
Adds richness and helps the filling set when baked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the filling's texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity and bright lemon flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the dissolved corn starch into the boiling water until smooth. Starch must be fully dispersed in hot liquid to gelatinize and thicken evenly. Adding it to water that is not boiling, or stirring too little, leaves lumps or a thin filling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, corn, 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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