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Dessert

English Cheese Cakes

A sweet cake made with crackers, butter, egg yolks, brandy or sherry, almonds, lemon rind, lemon juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon 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 ↓

English Cheese Cakes

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the rolled crackers and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the egg yolks, brandy or sherry, and sugar; beat until well combined.

  4. Grind the sweet and bitter almonds into a paste and mix into the batter.

Bake

  1. Fill oval patty pans with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set and lightly golden.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Brandy + almondtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Rolled crackers
Provide the crumb base that gives the cakes their body and bulk.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, crumbly texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the batter and help it set firmly when baked.
Sweet almonds
Contribute nutty flavour and a moist, paste-like body to the filling.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and promotes light browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until set and lightly golden. Egg yolks set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the cakes soft and runny, while overbaking dries them out and makes them tough. Watch for a firm centre and a light golden edge.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, brandy, almond, 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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