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Dessert

Lemon Cheese-cake

A lemon-flavored cheesecake made with butter, sugar, milk, sponge cake, eggs, lemon rind and juice, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Lemon Cheese-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Slice the sponge cake and pour the milk or cream over it.

  2. Beat the butter and sugar together, then stir in the soaked sponge cake.

  3. Mash the sponge cake very fine and add it to the mixture.

  4. Grate the yellow rind and squeeze the juice of half a lemon, then stir in.

Bake

  1. Cover pie plates with pastry, fill with the mixture, and bake at 350°F (175°C) 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a tender, smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps cream with the butter to a light base.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the filling and give it structure.
Sponge cake
Soaked in milk or cream, it adds body and moisture to the filling.
Lemon
Rind adds aroma and juice adds acidity for a bright, sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny while overbaking can make it dry and cracked. Watch for a firm centre rather than relying on time alone.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, 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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