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Dessert

Ckbah Cheese Pie

A baked pie made from cream cheese, sugar, egg yolks, butter, salt, lemon peel and folded beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,747 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Ckbah Cheese Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the cream cheese until smooth.

  2. Add sugar, beaten egg yolks, softened butter, salt, and lemon peel; mix well.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust.

  2. Bake until set and lightly golden.

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. Cream cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

Cream cheese
Provides the rich, dense body and creamy texture of the filling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to add air, giving the filling a lighter, fluffier texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the tang of the cream cheese.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.. Folding preserves the air whipped into the egg whites; stirring vigorously deflates them, which leads to a denser, less light pie.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, 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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