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Dessert

Cheese Cakes

A sweet baked cake made with curd, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, currants, brandy, wine, rose‑water, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Cheese Cakes

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Cakes

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 curd

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Beat 4 eggs and stir them into the boiling milk until it thickens into a curd.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool, then mash the curd very fine.

  4. Crumb the bread and mix it with the curd.

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the curd and bread mixture to the creamed butter and sugar.

  3. Whisk the remaining 4 eggs until thick and light, then pour them into the mixture.

  4. Gradually add the brandy, wine, rose-water, nutmeg, cinnamon, and currants.

Fill and bake

  1. Line small, square tin pans or soup plates with pastry, fill with the mixture, and fold the pastry over to form a half circle.

  2. Bake 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the curd and bind the filling, while whisked eggs add lightness.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the filling.
Milk
Forms the curd and adds moisture to the filling.
Bread
Soaks up liquid and gives the filling body and a soft crumb.
Currants
Add chewy sweetness and small bursts of fruit throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Mashing the curd very fine. Lumps of curd bake unevenly and give a grainy texture, so a smooth, fine curd makes a more uniform filling once the other ingredients are combined.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, bread, brandy, wine. 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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