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Dessert

Chess Cake

A custard-like cake baked in a thin pastry crust, made with egg yolks, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Chess Cake

Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Chess 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until well combined.

  2. Melt the butter and mix it into the egg yolk and sugar mixture.

  3. Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens, stirring constantly.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the filling into a prepared thin pastry crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set, about 25-30 minutes.

  3. Let cool before serving.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they cook and add richness and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it set smoothly.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling over low heat while stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the heat is too high or the mixture is left unstirred, the yolks can scramble and turn lumpy instead of forming a smooth, thick custard.

“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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