Name: Lemon Cheesecakes
Ingredients: ½ pint cream; ¼ pound fresh butter; 5 egg yolks; rind of 1 large lemon; juice of 1 large lemon; orange-flower water; brandy; sugar

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 ↓

Lemon Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the butter into slices and add it to the cream in a saucepan.
Heat over low heat until the butter melts, then remove from heat.
Let the cream cool, then mix in the beaten egg yolks.
Grate the lemon rind into the mixture and squeeze in the lemon juice.
Add a splash of orange-flower water, a splash of brandy, and sugar to taste.
Place crusts in patty pans and fill them slightly more than half full.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,706 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 (cream, butter, egg, lemon, brandy, sugar):

Vanillafits better
Raspberryfits better
Apricotfits about as well
Orangethe original

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