Name: New York Cheesecake
Ingredients: 8 ounces (15 4 3/4 x 2 1/2-inch sheets of graham cracker; yes, I; crazy enough to both count and measure) finely ground graham crackers or cookies such as chocolate or vanilla wafers; 8 tablespoons (1 stick or 4 ounces or 113 grams) unsalted butter, melted; 1/2 cup sugar; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 5 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (Philadelphia is recommended for cheesecakes but if you’ve had success with other brands, feel free to use them again); 1 3/4 cups sugar; 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest; 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest; 5 large eggs; 2 large egg yolks; 1/2 teaspoon vanilla; 10 ounces sweet or sour cherries, pitted (they’re not in season here so I used frozen; worked just fine); 2 tablespoons lemon juice; 1/4 cup sugar*; 1 tablespoon cornstarch; 1/2 cup water; As some of the pictures might suggest, I really borked (an actual word, thank you) the baking of this cake. First, I was convinced that 550 degrees would singe my cake so I did the first step at 400, to see if you can get away with it. Yes, I am guilty of not following a recipe from time to time too; 200 is more like 150. And an hour later, was almost completely raw. Then I upped it to 300, which my oven told me was actually 250, where it still took another hour to bake and gained many cracks. I blame the fact that the oven didn’t start hot enough, as many others have made this recipe crack-free

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 ↓

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + cream cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,747 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chocolate + cream cheesetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together894 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Swap the orange

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

Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Raspberryfits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, butter, sugar, cream cheese, flour, lemon, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Chocolate	1 oz (28g) semisweet	155
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Cream Cheese	1 oz (28g)	99
Cherry	1 cup (138g)	87
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Cracker	5 saltine crackers (15g)	66
Orange	1 medium (131g)	62
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Vanilla	1 tsp extract (4ml)	12
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0
Cake	not in our table	0

New York Cheesecake