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Lemon Cheese Cakes

A sweet almond-based cake flavored with lemon peel and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lemon Cheese Cakes

Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Lemon Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the almonds with rose water in a mortar until smooth.

  2. Mix in the grated lemon peel, powdered sugar, melted butter, egg yolks, and egg whites, then beat all ingredients together until well combined.

Bake

  1. Line patty pans with pastry and fill with the mixture.

  2. Bake until set and lightly golden.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set into a smooth, tender custard.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness to the filling as it sets in the oven.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and helps the filling stay moist.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and dissolves smoothly into the batter for a fine texture.
Blanched sweet almonds
Provide the base body and nutty flavour of the filling once pounded smooth.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture until well combined. Thorough mixing distributes the butter and egg proteins evenly, so the filling sets uniformly rather than in streaks or pockets of fat.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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