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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve the corn starch in a little cold water.

  2. In a saucepan, add the butter and boiling water.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice, lemon rind, sugar, and beaten egg yolks.

  4. Pour the mixture into the pie crust and bake until set.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. Once cool, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar to the beaten egg whites.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie.

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

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

  2. Corn + buttertop 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 lemon filling as it heats, giving it a sliceable set.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and body.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped meringue.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the filling and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake the filling until set. Starch thickens only when the mixture reaches a full simmer or near-boil and holds it; underbaked filling stays runny and will weep or slump when cut.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, butter, 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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