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Dessert

Almond Chee.secakes

A baked almond cheesecake made with ground almonds, butter, sugar, eggs, rose water, mace, and almond flavor, lined with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Chee.secakes

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 the almonds

  1. Remove the skins from the almonds using a marble mortar with a little rose water.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the ground almonds with the butter, creamed, sugar, and well-beaten eggs.

  2. Add a little powdered mace and a few drops of almond flavor.

Bake

  1. Line cheesecake tins with puff paste and fill them halfway.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Rose + macetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the filling once ground.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly as it bakes.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling its structure.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs set when heated, so the filling needs to bake until firm. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it dry and cracked.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter, sugar, egg, rose. 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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