Name: Cheesecakes and Blam Mange
Ingredients: 1 quart milk; 1 tablespoon rennet; 2 oz powdered sugar; ½ oz butter; 2 egg yolks; ⅓ cup sherry or Madeira; ¼ nutmeg, grated; 1 oz currants; light pastry for lining pattypans

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cheesecakes and Blam Mange

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the curd

Boil the milk, then pour it hot into a basin and mix in the rennet.
After an hour, break up the curd and drain off the whey.
Spread the curd on a sieve until free from liquid.

Make the filling

Dissolve the powdered sugar in the butter, then add the egg yolks, sherry, and grated nutmeg.
Mix the currants with the curd and combine all ingredients.

Bake

Line pattypans with light pastry, pour the mixture in, and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 25 minutes.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Sherry + curranttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together393 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,505 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,479 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,685 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk: Forms the curd that becomes the body of the cheesecake.
Rennet: Enzyme that curdles the milk so it separates into curds and whey.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help the filling set when baked.
Powdered sugar: Adds sweetness and dissolves into the butter for a smooth base.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Draining the curd thoroughly. Excess whey left in the curd makes the filling watery, so it may not set firmly in the pastry during baking.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Peachfits better
Currantthe original

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