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Dessert

Lemon Cheesecakes

A lemon custard baked in puff pastry, optionally flavored with almonds, candied peel, or sweet biscuit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Lemon Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA good brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the lemon mixture

  1. In a saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat until the sugar dissolves and it thickens to a honey-like consistency.

  3. Pour the mixture into small jars and store in a dry place; it will keep for 3 to 4 months.

Bake the cheesecakes

  1. To make cheesecakes, add pounded almonds, candied peel, or grated sweet biscuit to the mixture.

  2. Line patty pans with puff pastry and fill them more than halfway with the lemon mixture.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.

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. Almond + biscuittop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the filling and thicken it as they cook, giving body to the curd.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the filling.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it thicken into a honey-like consistency.
Lemon juice
Provides the acidity that gives the filling its sharp, bright flavour.
Lemon rind
Adds concentrated lemon aroma and flavour from the peel's oils.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over low heat. Eggs can scramble if the heat is too high. Gentle, steady heat lets the sugar dissolve and the eggs thicken the mixture smoothly into a curd.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, lemon, biscuit):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, lemon, biscuit. 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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