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Dessert

Lemon Cheesecakes

A baked lemon cheesecake made with sugar, butter, eggs, lemon rind, lemon juice, candied peel, and short paste lining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the lemon filling

  1. Combine sugar, butter, lemon rind, and strained lemon juice in a saucepan, then stir until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the saucepan, then stir and cook slowly until the mixture thickens.

  3. Let the mixture cool in a dry place until needed.

Fill and bake

  1. Line patty pans with short paste and fill them three-quarters full with the lemon mixture.

  2. Add a few strips of candied peel on top and bake for about 20 minutes at 350°F (175°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 + 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. Sugar + buttertop 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

Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the lemon juice and butter to form a smooth base.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture in the filling.
Eggs
Thicken the mixture as they gently set with heat, giving the filling body.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity and bright lemon flavour that defines the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the egg mixture slowly until it thickens. Egg proteins set with gentle, steady heat. If the mixture cooks too fast or gets too hot, the eggs can scramble or curdle, leaving a grainy filling instead of a smooth, thick one.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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