Name: Almond Cheese Cakes
Ingredients: ½ pound blanched sweet almonds; ½ pound pounded loaf sugar; 1 pound melted butter (nearly cold); 8 egg yolks; 4 egg whites; 1 nutmeg; grated peel of 1 lemon; ⅓ cup orange-flower water; ⅓ cup ratafia or brandy

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Almond Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

Blanch and pound the almonds with a little orange-flower water.
Beat the almonds with the egg yolks and egg whites.
Add the sugar, melted butter, nutmeg, and lemon peel. Mix all ingredients well.

Bake

Bake in patty pans lined with pastry.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,115 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,125 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Blanched sweet almonds: Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the cake, as finely pounded almond meal.
Egg yolks: Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter and set it as it bakes.
Egg whites: Add lightness and structure, helping the cake rise and hold its crumb.
Melted butter: Adds fat and moisture, giving a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Pounded loaf sugar: Sweetens the batter and contributes to browning in the oven.

Swap the orange

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Raisinfits about as well
Orangethe original

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