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Dessert

Common Cheesecakes

A custard-like cheesecake made with milk, rennet, biscuits, currants, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Common Cheesecakes

Why it works: Biscuit and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Common Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the curd

  1. Add rennet to the milk and set it near the fire until blood-warm and curdled.

  2. Drain the curd through a coarse sieve, breaking it gently with your fingers.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix in butter, sugar, nutmeg, grated biscuits, egg yolks, egg white, beaten almonds, rose water, and sack.

  2. Wash and clean the currants, then add them to the curd mixture.

  3. Fill your pans with the mixture and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Biscuit + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + biscuittop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rennet
Curdles the milk, forming the solid curd that gives the cheesecake its body.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture as it sets in the oven.
Egg white
Adds structure and helps the filling set when baked.
Naples biscuits
Add body and absorb liquid, helping the filling hold together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich texture.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and chew throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Drain the curd gently. Breaking the curd gently and draining it through a coarse sieve keeps the curds soft and moist. Pressing or crushing them releases whey and can make the filling dry and grainy once baked.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, biscuit, egg, almond, rose. 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.

More cheesecake recipes

Lemon 96Almond 47Rice 25Apple 21Curd 14Orange 14 See all 71 →

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