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Dessert

Lemon Cheese-Cakes

A lemon-flavored cake made from biscuits, sugar, eggs, butter, and lemon juice and rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Biscuit and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 697 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Lemon Cheese-Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pan over low heat.

  2. Stir gently until the mixture resembles honey.

  3. If storing, transfer to a jar and keep in a cool, dry place for several weeks.

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. Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  3. Biscuit + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks and whites thicken the mixture as it warms, giving it body.
Butter
Fat that enriches the mixture and gives it a smooth, rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps it thicken as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir gently over low heat. Eggs thicken from gentle heat but can scramble if the pan is too hot or the mixture is left unstirred. Low heat and steady stirring keep the curd smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, biscuit, 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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