Name: Cheese Cakes, Folkestone
Ingredients: 2 oz butter (½ cup); 2 oz currants, cleaned and picked (½ cup); grated rind of 1 lemon; a pinch of salt; pastry for lining the pans

Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cheese Cakes, Folkestone

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.

Simmer the ground rice in milk for 30 minutes.
Stir in the butter, sugar, lemon rind, well-beaten eggs, and salt.
Cook the mixture by the side of the fire until it thickens.
Let it cool slightly, then line the patty pans with pastry.
If the oven has a good bottom heat, half-bake the pastry before adding the mixture.
Fill the pastry with the cheesecake preparation and sprinkle currants on top.
Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 25 to 30 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.

Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,856 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,270 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).