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Dessert

A Very Fine Crust for Orange-cheesecakes, or Sweetmeats

A crust made from flour, sugar, butter, and eggs, baked and iced for orange cheesecake or sweetmeats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Very Fine Crust for Orange-cheesecakes, or Sweetmeats

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Dry the flour.

  2. Mix the flour with the sugar.

  3. Work the butter with your hands until frothy.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter.

  5. Mix well.

  6. Incorporate the beaten and strained egg yolks and whites.

  7. If the mixture is too soft, add more flour and sugar to make it rollable.

Shape and bake

  1. Line your pastry pans with the dough.

  2. Fill as desired.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 15 minutes.

Ice and serve

  1. Prepare icing by beating refined sugar with egg white until thick.

  2. Ice the pastries.

  3. Return them to the oven to harden.

  4. Serve cold.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together after baking.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat that makes the dough tender and rich in texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the dough.
Refined sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding flour to the soft mixture. If the dough is too soft, it will not hold its shape in the pans. Adding flour and sugar gradually lets you reach a rollable texture without overworking the dough, which would make it tough.

“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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