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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare

  1. Grate the yellow part of the lemons.

  2. Extract the juice.

  3. Dissolve the corn starch in water.

Make the filling

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Cook in a double boiler until thick.

Make the meringue

  1. Make meringue with the egg whites.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of sugar to each white.

Bake the pastry

  1. Bake the pastry first.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling when heated and add richness.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling as it heats and turns it glossy.
Lemons
Provide the tart acidity and fragrant aroma from the zest and juice.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and the meringue, balancing the lemon's tartness.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to give the meringue structure and volume.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thick. Corn starch only thickens once it is heated fully and held near a simmer. Stopping early leaves the filling thin, while overheating can curdle the egg yolks, so gentle, steady heat and constant stirring matter.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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