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Dessert

Cheese Cake or Cheese Pie

A baked dessert made with cottage cheese, eggs, sugar, and butter in a crust, topped with cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Cake or Cheese Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the cottage cheese, salt, cream, and flour.

  5. Mix the cottage cheese mixture into the creamed mixture.

  6. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Line a pie plate with pie crust or cookie dough, ensuring it comes up the sides.

  2. Pour the cheese mixture into the crust.

  3. Sprinkle the top lightly with powdered cinnamon.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + cottage cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the filling and whites, folded in, lighten it as they set.
Cottage cheese
Forms the body of the filling, giving it a soft, creamy structure when set.
Flour
Helps the filling hold its shape and keeps it from weeping as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly at the surface.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only if beaten and folded gently; overmixing deflates them, leaving a denser cheesecake that may set unevenly.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, cottage cheese, cream, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, cottage cheese, cream, flour. 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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