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Dessert

Cheesecakes

A baked dessert made with soaked bread crumbs, butter, sugar, currants, nutmeg, eggs, brandy, and a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Cheesecakes

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 the filling

  1. Pour boiling milk over bread crumbs and let soak briefly.

  2. Beat soaked bread crumbs with melted butter until combined.

  3. Once cool, mix in sugar, currants, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Add beaten egg yolks and egg whites mixed with brandy, and stir well.

Bake and serve

  1. Line tartlet tins with pastry crust and fill them slightly more than half full with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the filling and absorb the soaking milk to give a soft body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling tender and moist.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add lift and structure, helping the filling set lightly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Filling the tartlet tins. Filling only slightly more than half full leaves room for the mixture to rise and set without overflowing. Overfilling can cause spillage and an uneven, dense texture once baked.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, butter, sugar, nutmeg, egg, brandy. 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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