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Dessert

My Lemon Pie

A lemon pie made with cornmeal, water, sugar, butter, eggs, and lemon zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

My Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Stir cornmeal wet in cold water into boiling water.

  2. Let it boil slowly for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Stir in sugar and butter.

  5. Beat eggs separately.

  6. Stir eggs into the mixture when cool.

  7. Add lemon juice and grated rind.

Bake

  1. Bake until the pies puff up.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

Cornmeal
Thickens the filling as it boils, giving the pie a firm, sliceable body.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the filling as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice and grated rind
Provide acidity and bright lemon aroma that cut through the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir eggs into the mixture when cool. If the mixture is still hot, the eggs can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Letting it cool first keeps the filling silky and even.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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