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Dessert

Lemon Raisin Pie

A pie with a lemon‑raisin filling made from milk, corn starch, butter, sugar, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lemon Raisin 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. In a double boiler, heat 1 pint of milk until boiling.

  2. Mix 2 tablespoons of corn starch with ½ cup of milk, then add to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of butter and cook until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool, then add the lemon rind, lemon juice, sugar, raisins, nutmeg, and salt.

Bake

  1. Pour the filling between 2 pie crusts and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a custard-like filling as it cooks and boils.
Milk
Forms the base of the filling and sets with the corn starch as it thickens.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the cooked filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the sugar and milk.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the acidity of the lemon.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thickened. Corn starch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil and is cooked long enough. Undercooked starch leaves the filling thin and runny, so it may not set properly after baking.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, butter, lemon, sugar, nutmeg. 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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