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Dessert

A Very Fine Crust, for Orange-cheesecakes, or Sweet-meats When to Be Particularly Nice

A dough crust used for orange cheesecake or sweet meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Very Fine Crust, for Orange-cheesecakes, or Sweet-meats When to Be Particularly Nice

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Dry the flour and mix it with the sugar.

  2. Work the butter with your hands until frothy.

  3. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter.

  4. Incorporate the beaten and strained egg yolks and egg whites.

  5. If the mixture is too loose, add more flour and sugar to make it rollable.

Shape and bake

  1. Line your pattypans with the dough.

  2. Fill the lined pattypans.

  3. Bake for about 15 minutes until done.

Ice and finish

  1. Prepare icing by beating refined sugar with egg white until thick.

  2. Ice the baked crusts.

  3. Place the iced crusts in the oven to harden before serving cold.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together once baked.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, crumbly texture in the crust.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the dough.
Egg whites
Add moisture and help bind the dough, and whipped whites give the icing its body.
Refined sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Adjusting the dough consistency. If the dough is too loose it will not roll or hold its shape in the pattypans. Adding flour and sugar gradually, only as needed, keeps the crust firm enough to bake cleanly.

“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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