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Dessert

Almond Cheesecakes

A baked almond custard topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Almond Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Pound the sweet and bitter almonds in a bowl.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks and sifted sugar until well combined.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold the egg whites into the almond mixture.

  4. Add the lemon or orange rind, fruit jam, nutmeg, brandy, and orange-flower water, and mix well.

Bake

  1. Line a pan with puff pastry and fill it halfway with the cheesecake mixture.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350 °F / 175 °C) until set and lightly browned.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the mixture and help it rise and set in the oven.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the almond mixture as it sets.
Sweet and bitter almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the filling.
Sifted loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp shell that holds the filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be beaten until stiff but folded in gently, so the air they hold is not lost. This air is what lightens the filling and helps it rise and set evenly.

“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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