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Dessert

To Make Citron Cheese-Cakes

A custard-like cheesecake flavored with citron, almonds, and orange-flower water, baked in tea cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

To Make Citron Cheese-Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the cream.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and mix with the cooled cream.

  3. Heat the mixture until it boils and curds form.

Flavour and bake

  1. Blend in the blanched almonds and orange-flower water.

  2. Add the Naples biscuits and shredded citron.

  3. Sweeten to taste and bake in tea cups.

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. Almond + biscuittop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Orange + biscuittop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together371 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Cream + biscuittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Forms the rich body of the custard and carries the other flavours.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they heat and set into soft curds.
Blanched almonds
Add body and a nutty flavour to the filling.
Naples biscuits
Soak up liquid and give the filling a light, crumbly structure.
Green citron
Adds a bright, fragrant citrus flavour and some texture.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until it boils and curds form. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating makes them scramble into grainy lumps. Heat gently and stir constantly so the custard sets smooth.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, almond, biscuit, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, almond, biscuit, 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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