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Dessert

Almond Cheese Cakes

A baked almond cake made with rose water, powdered sugar, lemon rind, and egg yolks, topped with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Cheese Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds and soak them in cold water.

  2. Remove the almonds, dry them, and grind them finely in a mortar.

  3. Add a few drops of rose water to prevent oiling.

Make the filling

  1. Mix in the powdered sugar, lemon rind, and egg yolks.

  2. Beat the mixture until it is white and frothy.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease small patty pans with butter and line them with puff pastry.

  2. Fill the pastry with the almond mixture and sprinkle sugar on top.

  3. Bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

  4. Serve cold.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the filling once ground.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set firm when baked.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it stay smooth and fine-textured.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp shell that holds the almond filling while baking.

The step that matters

Add a few drops of rose water to prevent oiling. Ground almonds release oil as they are worked, which can separate and make the filling greasy. A little liquid helps keep the paste emulsified and smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, rose, sugar, egg, butter. 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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