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Dessert

Lemon Custard

A lemon custard baked in a pie crust with a crumb topping and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Lemon Custard

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lemon Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine water, lemon rind, lemon juice, sugar, corn starch, and egg yolks.

  3. Line a pie dish with the pie crust.

Fill and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the crust and sprinkle crumbled bread on top.

  2. Dot the pie with small pieces of butter.

  3. Bake until set.

Top and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add sugar and mix well.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture on top of the pie.

  3. Return to the oven and bake until the top is light brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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 filling and add richness as they set.
Corn starch
Thickens the lemon filling so it sets smoothly when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that sets and browns on top of the pie.
Sugar
Sweetens the lemon filling and helps the meringue become glossy and stable.
Lemon
Supplies the rind and juice that give the custard its bright, acidic flavor.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks to hold their shape and form a stable meringue. Underbeaten whites can weep or collapse on the custard, while the sugar added afterward helps keep the foam firm and glossy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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