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Dessert

Yorkshire Cheese Cakes

A baked cheese cake made with curds, butter, sugar, egg, currants, and pastry lining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,856 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Yorkshire Cheese Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the curds

  1. Heat 2 quarts of milk.

  2. When it rises, add ½ pint of vinegar or buttermilk to turn it into curds.

  3. Let it stand for 5 minutes.

  4. Strain through a sieve.

Fill and bake

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Mix in the curds, egg, and currants.

  3. Line patty pans with pastry.

  4. Fill the pans with the mixture.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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 + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Curds
Form the main body and soft, set texture of the filling.
Egg
Binds the filling and helps it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the crust brown.
Currants
Add sweetness and pockets of chewy fruit throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar or buttermilk to the hot milk. The acid makes the milk proteins clump into curds. If too little is added or the milk is not heated enough, the curds stay loose and the filling will be wet and weak when baked.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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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