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Dessert

Cheesecakes , Another Way

A custard cheesecake made with milk curd, currants, sugar, spices, lemon peel, eggs, cream, brandy, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cheesecakes , Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mix the curd of the milk, currants, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon peel, egg yolks, egg whites, scalded cream, and brandy until well combined.

  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  3. Line patty pans with the puff pastry and fill them three-quarters full with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until set and lightly golden.

  2. Let cool before serving.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a firm, sliceable custard when baked.
Egg whites
Add protein that coagulates during baking, giving the filling structure and lift.
Scalded cream
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture that the eggs set within.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly at the surface.

The step that matters

Bake until set and lightly golden. The egg proteins set as the filling heats, so the centre should wobble only slightly when the pan is moved. Overbaking squeezes out liquid and makes the custard grainy and rubbery, while underbaking leaves it runny inside the pastry.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon, egg, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon, egg, cream. 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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