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Dessert

Cheese Cakes

A baked dessert made with Neufchatel or cream cheese, sugar, lemon, cracker crumbs, currants, butter, nutmeg, milk, eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cheese Cakes

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cheese Cakes

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Crumble the cheese and cracker crumbs together in a bowl.

Make the filling

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add the sugar, salt, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Mix in the melted butter and cream, then combine with the cheese and cracker mixture.

  3. Fold in the currants and lemon juice.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a prepared baking dish and bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until set.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 give the cakes their structure as they bake.
Neufchatel or cream cheese
Provides richness and a creamy, dense texture in the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tang of the cheese.
Cracker crumbs
Add body and absorb moisture so the filling holds together.
Cream or rich milk
Adds moisture and fat for a softer, smoother texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs firm as they heat, so pulling the cakes too early leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make them dry and grainy. Check for a set centre rather than relying only on the time.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, sugar, lemon, butter, nutmeg, cream, 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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