Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Cheesecakes

A sweet almond and orange-flavored cheesecake made with butter, sugar, eggs, and candied orange.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓
Orange Cheesecakes

Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Orange 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. Blanch the almonds and pound them in a mortar with orange-flower water.

  2. Add sugar, butter, the prepared Seville orange, and the candied orange.

  3. Incorporate the egg yolks and egg whites, and beat the mixture thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Line patty-pans with puff pastry and fill with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 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.

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. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the bulk and nutty body of the filling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set when baked.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the filling rise and set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.
Seville orange
Adds bright acidity and citrus aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture thoroughly after adding the eggs. Thorough beating combines the egg yolks and whites evenly with the butter and sugar, so the filling bakes smoothly and sets uniformly instead of separating or turning lumpy.

Swap the orange

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

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

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

More orange cheesecake recipes

You might also like