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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A tart pie filled with lemon custard topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, combine the grated lemon rind, lemon juice, egg yolks, sugar, butter, corn starch, and water.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring until thickened.

  4. Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust and bake until set.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and return to the oven to brown the top.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set with heat, giving it a rich, custard-like body.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the pie's flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the meringue as it whips.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling when heated so it sets firm enough to slice.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thickened. Corn starch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a full boil and is stirred constantly, so stopping early leaves a runny filling that will not set after baking.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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