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Dessert

Curd Cheesecakes

A baked dessert made from curds, eggs, lemon essence, sugar, and optional dried fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Curd Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Break up the curds and mix with the eggs.

  2. Flavor with lemon essence and sweeten with sugar.

  3. Add currants or cherries if desired.

Fill and bake

  1. Line patty pans with pastry.

  2. Fill each pan three-quarters full with the mixture.

  3. Bake until the tops are a light chestnut brown, with the oven door slightly ajar.

Serve

  1. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Lemon + curranttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Lemon and sugar 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

Curds
Form the body of the filling and give the cheesecake its soft, creamy texture.
Eggs
Bind the curds into a set custard as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and contributes to browning on the tops.

The step that matters

Baking until the tops are light chestnut brown with the oven door slightly ajar. Baking with the door ajar lets the oven cool slightly so the custard sets gently without overbrowning. Egg-based fillings can turn rubbery or cracked if baked too hot, so watching the colour and setting matters.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

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