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Dessert

Frosted Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with a frothy egg white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Frosted Lemon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the lemon filling

  1. Combine water, sugar, butter, cornstarch, lemon rind, and lemon juice in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until thick.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crust is cooked.

  2. Beat egg whites to a dry froth, then add powdered sugar.

  3. Spoon the egg white mixture onto the lemon filling and brown lightly in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the lemon mixture as it boils, giving the filling its body.
Egg
Enriches the filling and helps it set as it cooks.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the light, airy topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg white topping.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Spoon the egg white mixture onto the lemon filling and brown lightly in a 400°F (200°C) oven.. Egg whites over-bake quickly and can weep or turn tough and rubbery. Watch closely so the meringue only lightly browns while staying soft and tender.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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