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Dessert

Curd Cheesecakes

A baked dessert made from milk, butter, currants, sugar, cream, wine or brandy, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Curd Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the mixture

  1. In a large pot, heat 10 quarts of milk until warm.

  2. Add 5 oz of butter and stir until melted.

  3. Mix in 1.5 pounds of currants and 1 pound of sugar.

  4. Stir in 1.5 pints of cream and ½ pint of wine or brandy.

  5. Season with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and a little coarse sea salt to taste.

Bake

  1. Combine all ingredients thoroughly and pour into a baking dish.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the bulk of the custard and sets into a soft, tender curd when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, more tender texture to the set curd.
Cream
Adds fat and body, making the set filling richer and smoother.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and contributes to browning at the surface.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chew scattered through the filling.
Wine or brandy
Contributes acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the dairy.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Milk and cream proteins coagulate as they heat, so the filling needs enough time to firm. Pulling it too early leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the curd grainy and dry.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, cream, wine, nutmeg, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, cream, wine, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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