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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon custard filling made by heating lemon juice, water, butter, sugar, and eggs, thickened with corn starch or flour, poured into pie crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn 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

makes 2 pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lemon juice, water, butter, sugar, and beaten eggs.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly.

  3. Once heated, thicken the mixture with corn starch or flour.

Fill the pies

  1. Pour the filling into pie crusts to make 2 pies.

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 + corntop 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. Lemon + buttertop 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

Eggs
Thicken the filling as they cook and add richness to the custard.
Corn starch or flour
Thickens the lemon mixture into a sliceable filling as it heats.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the pie's flavor.
Sugar
Balances the tartness of the lemon juice and adds sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring while heating the filling. Eggs can curdle or scramble if the mixture overheats or sits still on the heat. Constant stirring over medium heat keeps the eggs evenly cooked and lets the starch thicken the filling smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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