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Dessert

Lemon Cheesecake

A baked lemon-flavored cheesecake made with butter, powdered sugar, eggs, lemon rind, lemon juice, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Cheesecake

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a small dish with puff pastry, ¼ inch thick, and create a rim with the same thickness.

  3. Trim the edges with a knife and press the pastry from the center towards the edges.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine butter, powdered sugar, eggs, lemon rind, and lemon juice. Mix well and stir gently over medium heat until it boils.

  2. Remove from heat and place the saucepan in a basin of cold water until cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the pastry with the mixture and bake until the crust is golden.

  2. Serve on a napkin.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the filling into a soft, sliceable custard as they cook and thicken.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Powdered white sugar
Sweetens the filling and dissolves smoothly into the mixture.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity and bright flavor that balances the sweetness.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky base that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring the filling as it heats over medium heat until it boils. Eggs can scramble if heated too fast or left unstirred. Gentle, constant stirring keeps the mixture smooth and lets the eggs thicken evenly into a custard.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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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