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Dessert

Almond Cheese Cake

A custard-like cake made with rennet curd, almonds, currants, and spices, baked with puff pastry edges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Almond Cheese Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the curd

  1. Wash the rennet in cold water, then dry it.

  2. Soak the rennet in a tea cup with enough lukewarm water to cover it overnight.

  3. Warm the milk (do not boil).

  4. Stir in the rennet-water.

  5. Cover the mixture.

  6. Place it in a warm spot until the curd is firm and the whey looks greenish.

  7. Drain the whey.

  8. Cool the curd in a cool place.

Prepare the almonds and currants

  1. Wash the currants and dry them.

  2. Dredge the currants with flour.

  3. Blanch and peel the sweet almonds.

  4. Blanch and peel the bitter almonds.

  5. Cool the almonds in cold water, then dry them.

  6. Beat the almonds into a smooth paste, adding a few drops of rose water.

Make the filling and bake

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light.

  2. Gradually mix the egg yolks with the curd.

  3. Add the cream and mixed spice.

  4. Stir in the pounded almonds and currants alternately.

  5. Stir the mixture well.

  6. Pour the mixture into buttered dishes, placing puff pastry around the edges.

  7. Bake immediately in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set.

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Currant + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together494 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rennet
Coagulates the warm milk into a firm curd, which forms the body of the cheese.
Milk
Forms the curd that the whole cake is built on.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit and sweetness throughout the filling.
Sweet almonds
Make a smooth, rich paste that adds body and nutty flavour to the filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set firm and custard-like in the oven.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the texture of the filling.

The step that matters

Bake immediately in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set. Egg yolks set through gentle heat and coagulate as they warm. Baking right after mixing keeps the batter stable, so the filling sets evenly rather than separating or weeping.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, almond, egg, cream, rose, butter. 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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