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Dessert

A Cheese-cake

A cake made with eggs, milk, butter, sugar, grated bread, currants, spices, and brandy, baked in a puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Cheese-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Clean and dry currants, setting aside some for topping.

  2. Sprinkle remaining currants with flour.

  3. Cream butter and sugar together.

  4. Grate bread and prepare spices.

  5. Beat eggs until light.

Make the batter

  1. Boil milk, add half beaten eggs, stir until curdles.

  2. Mix grated bread into curd, then remove from heat.

  3. Gradually stir curd mixture into creamed butter and sugar.

  4. Add remaining eggs, then gradually mix in liquor and spices.

  5. Fold in currants.

Bake and serve

  1. Prepare puff pastry, place mixture into it, scatter reserved currants on top.

  2. Bake in preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and give the cake its light, set structure as they cook.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Milk
Forms a curd with the eggs that gives the batter body and moisture.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and soaks up the curd, adding body and a soft, moist texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves easily into the creamed butter.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Boiling milk with the beaten eggs until it curdles. If the milk boils too hard or the eggs are added too fast, the proteins seize into lumps instead of a smooth curd. Removing it from heat as soon as it thickens keeps the curd smooth and tender.

“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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