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Dessert

Neufchatel Cheese

A Neufchatel cheese cake with lemon zest, currants, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Neufchatel Cheese

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. Remove the wrapper and thin skin from the Neufchatel cheese.

  2. Crumble the cheese and mix it with the rolled cracker crumbs.

Make the filling

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar, then add the melted butter and cream.

  2. Stir in the lemon zest, lemon juice, grated nutmeg, and currants.

  3. Combine all ingredients well and pour into well-buttered patty pans lined with puff pastry.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C) until puffed but not too brown.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Neufchatel cheese
Forms the creamy, rich body of the filling once crumbled and mixed.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling its structure and puffed texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps tenderize the eggs as they are beaten.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Cream or rich milk
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft after baking.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb in the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until puffed but not too brown. Eggs set and puff as they heat, but over-baking makes them tough and dry and can over-brown the surface. Pulling the cakes once they are puffed keeps the filling smooth and moist.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, sugar, lemon, egg, butter, cream, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, sugar, lemon, egg, butter, cream, nutmeg. 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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