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Dessert

Excellent Cheesecakes

A milk-based cheesecake with almonds, citrus, currants, and brandy, baked in a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Excellent Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the curd

  1. In a large pot, combine the milk and rennet.

  2. Set it near the fire to help it curdle.

  3. Once curdled, drain the curd thoroughly from the whey and place it on a sieve.

Make the filling

  1. Mix in the butter and rub it through the sieve into a bowl.

  2. Add powdered sugar to taste, along with the sweet and bitter almonds, candied citron, orange peel, lemon peel, currants, and brandy.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a pastry by mixing the flour, powdered sugar, and butter with enough cold spring water to form a dough.

  2. Roll it out to the proper thickness.

  3. Line the pans with the pastry and fill them with the cheesecake mixture.

  4. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the curd that becomes the body of the cheesecake filling.
Rennet
Causes the milk to curdle, setting the soft curd for draining.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the curd and pastry.
Flour
Gives the pastry structure so it holds its shape around the filling.
Sweet and bitter almonds
Add nutty aroma and flavour to the cheesecake filling.

The step that matters

Draining the curd thoroughly. Excess whey left in the curd makes the filling watery, so it may not set firmly or may make the pastry soggy during baking.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More cheesecake recipes

Lemon 96Almond 47Rice 25Apple 21Curd 14Orange 14 See all 71 →

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