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Dessert

To Make Cheese-Cakes

A cake made from blanched almonds, butter, sugar, eggs, and mace, baked in tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

To Make Cheese-Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Beat the almonds in rose water until smooth.

  2. Cream the softened butter with sugar until light.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mace, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into little tins lined with cold butter paste.

  2. Bake 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 + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Provide the bulk of the filling, giving a smooth, rich body once beaten.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the filling turn tender and smooth when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps creaming trap air for a lighter texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the filling into a firm, sliceable custard.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating until light traps air in the fat, which lightens the texture. Under-creaming leaves a dense filling, while the eggs must be added gradually so the mixture does not split.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter, sugar, egg. 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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