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Dessert

Almond Cheese Cakes

A sweet cake made with powdered sugar, egg whites, almonds, butter, and flavored with rose or orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Almond Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Beat together the powdered sugar and egg whites until light.

  2. Blanch and chop the almonds, then beat them with the egg mixture.

  3. Add almond oil or rose water and mix well.

  4. Soak the Jordan almonds in cold water overnight.

  5. Blanch the soaked almonds, dry them, and grind them with orange-flower or rose water.

Make the filling

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and remaining egg whites, then add white sugar and powdered mace.

  2. Combine all ingredients in the mortar and mix thoroughly.

  3. Melt the butter and add grated lemon peel.

Bake

  1. Fill small tin shapes with the mixture after placing pastry at the bottom.

  2. Bake until set.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to lighten the mixture and help it set when baked.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling bind and set as it bakes.
Almonds
Provide the main body, nutty flavor and texture of the filling.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the base and dissolves easily into the beaten egg whites.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins set with heat, so the filling should be baked just until firm; overbaking can make it dry and grainy, while underbaking leaves it runny.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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