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 ↓
Lemon Cheesecakes
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the sugar and butter together gently.
Add the egg yolks, egg white, lemon rind, lemon juice, Savoy biscuit, pounded almonds, and brandy. Mix well.
For the pastry, mix 6 ounces of butter with 8 ounces of flour.
Add 6 tablespoons of water to form a dough and roll it out.
Line the pattypans with the pastry and fill them three-quarters full with the lemon mixture.
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.
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Biscuit + almondtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together388 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Biscuit + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together889 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, biscuit, almond, brandy, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, biscuit, almond, brandy, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More lemon cheesecake recipes
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