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Dessert

Almond Cheesecakes

A baked almond-based cheesecake with rose or orange-flower water, butter, sugar, lemon peel, eggs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Almond Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Let the almonds dry for 30 minutes.

  3. Pound the almonds very fine in a mortar with the rose or orange-flower water.

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter until smooth in a warm place.

  2. Add the butter to the almond mixture.

  3. Mix in the sifted sugar, grated lemon peel, cream, and eggs, and rub everything together well.

Bake and decorate

  1. Line a patty pan with puff paste.

  2. Fill the lined pan with the almond mixture.

  3. Decorate with candied lemon peel and split almonds.

  4. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 pounded fine.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set firm as it bakes.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown in the oven.
Puff paste
Forms a crisp, flaky shell that holds the filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Pound the almonds very fine. Coarse almond pieces give a gritty texture instead of a smooth filling. Fine pounding, helped by the liquid, releases the almond oils and creates an even paste that bakes evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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