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Dessert

Lemon Filling for Pie

A lemon custard filling for pie made with lemon juice, rind, egg yolks, water, sugar, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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 Filling for Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a double boiler, combine lemon juice, grated rind, egg yolks, water, sugar, and cornstarch.

  2. Cook over simmering water, stirring constantly, until thickened.

Set aside

  1. Set aside the egg whites for the topping.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 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).

Lemon and sugar 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
Add richness and help thicken the filling as they cook.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling into a smooth, sliceable set when heated with liquid.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon
Provides the tart acidity and bright aroma of the filling.

The step that matters

Cook over simmering water, stirring constantly, until thickened. Cornstarch needs to reach a simmer while being stirred to thicken evenly. Stopping early leaves the filling runny, and letting it stick or overheat can cause lumps or scrambled egg yolks.

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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