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Dessert

Lemon Custard Pie

A baked pie with lemon custard filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Custard Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs. Gradually add the sugar, beating well.

  3. Stir in the cornstarch, lemon rind, lemon juice, and milk.

  4. Line a pie plate with pastry. Add an extra strip of pastry around the rim.

  5. Pour the lemon custard mixture into the pastry.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Bake the pie.

  2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Add the powdered sugar. Beat until stiff.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie. Sprinkle with granulated sugar.

  4. Return to the oven to brown for 1 minute.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites whip into the stiff meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, dissolved into whipped whites, stabilises the meringue.
Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon filling so it sets into a sliceable custard when cooked.
Lemon juice
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the custard and meringue.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness to the custard base.

The step that matters

Beat the meringue to stiff peaks. Egg whites need to be whipped until firm and the sugar fully beaten in; under-beaten whites weep liquid and collapse, while the sugar and whites must be fully combined to hold their shape when browned.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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