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Dessert

Curd Cheesecakes

A baked cheesecake made with curds, sugar, eggs, butter, ratafias, brandy, and lemon rind, served hot or cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,127 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Curd Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter and mix it with the curds.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, egg yolks, egg whites, ratafias, brandy, and lemon rind.

  3. Prepare patty pans by lining them thinly with paste and filling them three-quarters full.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a sharp oven at 400°F (200°C) until set.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Curds
Forms the creamy body of the filling as it sets when baked.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set into a custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift, helping the filling set firm in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Powdered ratafias
Add almond-like aroma and flavour and some body to the filling.
Puff or flaky paste
Forms the crisp, flaky shell that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Bake in a sharp oven until set. Egg proteins set with heat, so the filling needs a hot oven to firm up. Baking too gently or too long can leave it weepy, dry, or rubbery.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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