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Dessert

Cheesecake Cases

A cheesecake baked in puff or tart pastry cases, topped with curd, lemon peel, candied citron, sliced almonds, or currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cheesecake Cases

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 the pastry

  1. Roll out pieces of paste to ½ inch thick, large enough to cover the pans.

  2. Thin the paste slightly in the middle.

  3. Trim the edges of the paste.

  4. Notch the edges round.

  5. For a large cheesecake, line a flat pie dish with paste.

  6. Add an extra rim.

Fill and bake

  1. Place some curd in the center of the paste.

  2. Spread curd within an inch of the edge.

  3. Top with a slice of lemon peel.

  4. Decorate with candied citron, lemon peel, sliced almonds, or currants.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

  6. 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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + curranttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Almond + curranttop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff or tart paste
Forms a crisp, flaky shell that holds the curd while baking.
Curd
Sets when baked to form the creamy, rich filling.
Currants
Add chewy sweetness and small bursts of fruit flavour to the top.

The step that matters

Spread curd within an inch of the edge. Keeping the curd back from the rim stops it spilling over and burning on the pastry edge, while the pastry rim rises and browns to contain it.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, almond. 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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