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Dessert

Almond Cueesecakes

A baked almond cheesecake with a puff pastry base, made from ground almonds, butter, sugar, eggs, rose water, mace, and almond flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Cueesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the skins from the almonds and grind them with a little rose water in a marble mortar.

  2. Cream the butter in a bowl, then mix in the ground almonds, sugar, and beaten eggs.

  3. Add powdered mace and almond flavoring to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Line cheesecake tins with puff pastry and fill them halfway with the mixture.

  2. Bake until set.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Rose + macetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the filling once ground.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that makes the filling tender and smooth.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly as it bakes.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the filling its structure and firm texture.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat; underbaking leaves the filling runny, while overbaking can make it dry and curdled.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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

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