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Dessert

A Cheesecake

A baked cheesecake made with eggs, milk, butter, sugar, bread, currants, brandy, wine, rose water, spices, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Cheesecake

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. Pick and clean the currants, then dry them on a dish before the fire.

  2. Set aside a few currants for topping and sprinkle the rest with flour.

  3. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  4. Grate the bread and prepare the spices.

  5. Beat the eggs until light.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the milk, then add half of the beaten eggs and stir until it curdles.

  2. Mix the grated bread into the curd and stir well.

  3. Gradually combine the curd mixture with the creamed butter and sugar.

  4. Stir in the remaining beaten eggs, then add the liquor and spices.

  5. Finally, fold in the floured currants.

Bake and serve

  1. Prepare a puff pastry and place the cheesecake mixture into it.

  2. Scatter the reserved currants on top.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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 custard-like structure and add richness and body.
Milk
Curdles with the eggs to form the soft, moist base of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, moist texture to the filling.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps create a smooth, light texture when creamed with butter.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and gives the curd a soft, crumb-like body.
Currants
Add chewy sweetness and pockets of fruit flavour throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Boil the milk and curdle it with the eggs. Adding eggs to hot milk and stirring until it curdles sets the eggs gently into soft curds. Overheating or boiling too hard can make the eggs grainy or tough, so the curd should be stirred as it thickens.

“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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