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Dessert

Cheese Pie

A baked dessert made with eggs, lemon, cottage cheese, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and cottage cheese work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 601 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Cheese Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the beaten yolks with the sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the grated lemon rind and juice to the yolk mixture.

  3. Pass the cottage cheese through a colander and mix it in, beating thoroughly.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Line a pie tin with raw pie crust and pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake for 35 minutes or 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. Egg + cottage cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Lemon + cottage cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Eggs
Yolks add richness and help set the filling; whites, folded in, lighten its texture.
Cottage cheese
Provides the body and creamy structure of the filling as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the lemon.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma from the rind and juice.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that gives lift and a light texture. Fold gently with a spatula so the foam is not deflated, which would leave a denser, heavier pie.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cottage cheese, sugar. 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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