Name: Lemon Cheesecakes
Ingredients: 4 ounces butter; 4 egg yolks; 4 ounces finely pounded loaf sugar; juice of 3 limes; 1 liqueur glass of noyeau or curaçao; puff pastry for lining patty pans

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Lemon Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in an enamelled saucepan.
Stir in the egg yolks and sugar until dissolved.
Add the lime juice and mix well.
Line 8 or 9 round patty pans with puff pastry.
Fill each pan half full with the mixture, leaving room for rising.
Dust with finely pounded sugar after baking and serve hot.

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.

Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + limetop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,332 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Butter + limetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,339 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).