Name: Cheesecakes
Ingredients: 1½ quarts dry curd from milk; ½ pound picked currants; White sugar to taste; Ground cinnamon to taste; 4 egg yolks; Grated peel of 1 lemon; ½ pint scalded cream; 1 glass brandy; Thin light puff-paste for lining patty-pans

Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cheesecakes

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and bake

In a bowl, mix the dry curd, currants, sugar, cinnamon, egg yolks, lemon peel, cream, and brandy until well combined.
Line patty-pans with puff-paste and fill them nearly full with the mixture.
Bake for 20 minutes until golden.

Serve

Optionally, ice the cheesecakes 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.

Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Dry curd: Forms the body of the filling, giving it a soft, set texture when baked.
Egg yolks: Bind the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture as it bakes.
Cream: Adds richness and moisture, making the filling tender rather than dry.
Currants: Add pockets of sweetness and chewy fruitiness throughout the filling.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Raisinfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, cinnamon, egg, lemon, cream, brandy. 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.