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Dessert

Cheese Cakes

A sweet cheese cake made from curdled milk, butter, sugar, currants, candied peel, ground almonds, eggs, and a butter‑flour paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Cheese Cakes

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cheese Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the curd

  1. Add ½ cup of rennet to 3 quarts of new milk and let it stand in a warm place until it curdles.

  2. Drain the curds well and mix in ½ pound of fresh butter and sugar to taste.

  3. Add washed currants, citron, candied orange and lemon peels, and 1 ounce of finely ground Jordan almonds.

  4. Beat 3 eggs and mix them into the curd mixture.

Make the paste

  1. For the paste, mix ½ pound of sifted flour, ¼ pound of fresh butter, and cold water until light, then roll it out.

Bake and serve

  1. Line pans with the paste, fill them with the curd mixture, and bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) until 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

New milk
Forms the curds that make up the body of the filling.
Rennet
Causes the milk to curdle and set into a soft curd.
Eggs
Bind the curd mixture and help it set when baked.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a tender texture.
Sifted flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the filling.
Jordan almonds
Add nutty flavour and body to the curd filling.

The step that matters

Draining the curds well. Excess whey left in the curds would make the filling watery and stop it setting firmly when baked, so the curds should be drained thoroughly before the butter, sugar and eggs are added.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, orange, lemon, almond, 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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