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Dessert

Cheese Cakes

Cheese cakes made with sugar, eggs, lemon, butter, baked in jars, cooled, and covered with brandy-dipped paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cheese Cakes

Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, egg yolks, egg whites, lemon juice, lemon rind, and butter.

  2. Stir the mixture gently over low heat until it thickens to the consistency of honey.

Jar and cover

  1. Pour the mixture into small jars.

  2. Once cooled, cover the jars with paper dipped in brandy.

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

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they set over gentle heat and add richness.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness to the mixture as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the sugar.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the curd a smooth, rich texture.
Pounded loaf sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps it thicken as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring over low heat. Egg proteins set at gentle heat, but high heat can scramble the eggs and leave lumps. Gentle, constant stirring keeps the curd smooth until it reaches a honey-like thickness.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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