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Dessert

Lemon Sponge Cream Pie

A lemon-flavored custard pie with a buttery sponge base, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lemon Sponge Cream Pie

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.

Make the filling

  1. Blend ½ cup of sugar with the butter, then add the egg yolks, lemon juice, and rind. Beat until creamy.

  2. Mix the remaining ½ cup of sugar with the flour and add to the mixture, beating until smooth.

  3. Add the milk and salt, stirring well.

  4. Beat the egg whites until very stiff and fold them into the mixture carefully.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into an unbaked pie shell and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 40 to 50 minutes.

  2. Watch the pie closely as it browns quickly. Bake until it feels firm and well set when the pan is shaken.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and thicken the custard, while whipped whites lighten it and help it set.
Flour
Starch thickens the filling so it holds its shape when cut.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour that cuts the richness of the custard.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture in the filling.
Rich sweet milk
Provides liquid that forms the body of the custard and adds richness.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten until very stiff trap air that lightens the filling and helps it rise and set. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the whites and leaves a dense, flat pie.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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