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Dessert

Another Way to Iyiake Curd Cheese Cakes

A baked dessert made from curdled milk, butter, almonds, sugar, candied citron, lemon peel, eggs, brandy, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Another Way to Iyiake Curd Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

  1. Add rennet to 2 quarts of new milk and let it curdle.

  2. Drain off the whey.

  3. Rub the curd through a sieve with ¼ pound of fresh butter.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix in ½ ounce of sweet almonds, 4 bitter almonds, 3 ounces of pounded sugar, some candied citron, the grated lemon peel, 3 beaten eggs, ⅓ cup of brandy, and 3 ounces of currants. Combine all ingredients well and pour into patty pans lined with pastry.

  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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Curdles with rennet to form the curd that makes up the cake's body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set during baking.
Butter
Enriches the curd with fat, adding richness and a softer texture.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and body to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and contributes to browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until set. The eggs must coagulate to hold the filling together. Underbaking leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the custard-like filling dry and grainy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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