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Dessert

Lemon Cream Pie

A lemon custard filling baked in a pie crust topped with a sweetened meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 Cream Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, cook the beaten yolks of 4 eggs, 1 to 2 cups sugar, and the juice and grated rind of 1 lemon, stirring constantly until thick.

  2. Remove from heat and fold in the stiffly beaten whites of 2 eggs.

  3. Pour the mixture into the baked pie crust.

Frost and brown

  1. For the frosting, beat the remaining 2 egg whites, adding a little lemon flavoring and sugar to taste.

  2. Spread the frosting over the pie and place it in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown quickly.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the lemon mixture into a rich, sliceable custard as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice and rind
Provide acidity and aroma that give the filling its bright flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped whites fold in air for a light texture and form the browned topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the yolk mixture until thick. Yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can curdle them into a grainy texture. Stir constantly and remove from heat once thick so the filling sets smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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