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Dessert

Lemon Custard Pie

A lemon custard pie made with brown sugar, corn starch, eggs, butter, and lemon, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Custard Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine brown sugar and water in a two-quart basin and bring to a boil on the stove.

  2. Mix corn starch with a little cold water.

  3. Once the sugar mixture boils, stir in the corn starch and boil for 5 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Separate the whites from 2 eggs and beat the remaining eggs.

  6. Stir the beaten eggs into the hot mixture along with butter and salt.

  7. Peel the lemons, finely chop the insides and peel, and add to the mixture.

  8. Stir well and return to the stove for 1-2 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into pie crusts.

  2. Beat the egg whites with 2 teaspoons of sugar until stiff.

  3. Spread the stiff egg whites over the pies and brown in the 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. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Corn + buttertop 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

Corn starch
Thickens the lemon mixture so it sets into a sliceable custard.
Eggs
Add richness and help the custard set when heated.
Lemons
Provide the sharp, acidic flavour that balances the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds a deeper, caramel-like flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture.

The step that matters

Boil the corn starch mixture for 5 minutes while stirring. Starch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and is stirred constantly; stopping early leaves the custard thin, and stirring prevents the starch from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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