Skip to main content
Dessert

Chess Cakes

A custard-like cake made with butter, eggs, sugar, raisins, cooked in a double boiler, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Chess Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until thick.

  4. Stir in the raisins and beat until cold.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill patty crusts with the mixture.

  2. Top with meringue made from the reserved egg whites.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the meringue is brown.

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Butter + raisintop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a tender, fine-textured body to the filling.
Eggs
Thicken the filling when cooked and form the meringue topping.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture in a double boiler until thick. Eggs thicken gently as they heat; if the heat is too high they can scramble, leaving a grainy filling. Gentle, indirect heat keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

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

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes