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Dessert

Cheesecakes

A custard-based cheesecake with almonds, orange-flower water, and mace, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan until near boiling.

  2. Whisk in the egg yolks and half the egg whites until well combined.

  3. Continue cooking until it forms a fine curd, then strain through a fine sieve.

  4. While the curd is still hot, mix in the butter until melted.

Flavour and bake

  1. Let the mixture cool, then add the almonds, orange-flower water, mace, and sugar.

  2. Fill puff pastry with the mixture and bake until golden.

  3. Add currants if desired.

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 + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Mace + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides richness and body, setting into a smooth, creamy filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard into a curd as they cook and set.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the mixture set while baking.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth texture and rich flavour.
Blanched almonds
Add body and a nutty flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the curd. Egg yolks thicken only within a narrow temperature range. Heating too fast or too long can scramble them into lumps, so keep the heat gentle, stir steadily, and strain the curd to remove any bits.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, butter, almond, orange, mace, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, butter, almond, orange, mace, sugar. 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.

More cheesecake recipes

Lemon 96Almond 47Rice 25Apple 21Curd 14Orange 14 See all 71 →

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