Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheese-cakes From Curds

A baked cheese cake made from curds, sugar, citrus, butter, and egg yolks, served in tartlet cases.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,746 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cheese-cakes From Curds

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

  1. Press the curds in a napkin to extract moisture.

  2. Rub the sugar on the outside of the oranges or lemons.

  3. Dissolve the sugar in the hot butter.

Make and fill

  1. Mix the dissolved sugar with the curds, ratafias, grated nutmeg, and egg yolks.

  2. Fill the tartlet cases with the mixture.

  3. Optionally, place a thin strip of candied peel in the center of each cheese-cake.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until done.

  2. If the color is poor, finish with a salamander but avoid overbaking.

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. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Curds
Form the set body of the filling once combined with egg and sugar.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set firm when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the filling.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the filling and dissolves into the warm butter before mixing.
Powdered ratafias
Add almond-like aroma and a light crumb flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until done, and avoid overbaking. Egg yolks set as they heat, so overbaking can make the filling dry, grainy, or cracked. Stop once the filling is just set and lightly coloured.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, nutmeg, 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes