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Madame Werner’s Rosenvik Cheese-cakes

A custard-like almond cheesecake with lemon zest, butter, and optional marmalade, baked in puff pastry-lined molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Madame Werner’s Rosenvik Cheese-cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the almond base

  1. Blanch the almonds.

  2. Pound the almonds to a fine paste with a few drops of lemon juice or water.

  3. Gradually mix in the whisked eggs while beating continuously.

  4. Slowly add the powdered sugar and continue beating the mixture.

  5. Incorporate the grated lemon rind.

  6. Add the strained lemon juice.

  7. Pour in the liquefied butter in small portions.

  8. Whisk lightly for several minutes.

  9. Thicken the mixture over low heat until it resembles boiled custard.

Fill and bake

  1. Line pattypans with fine puff pastry.

  2. Fill the pattypans one third full with the mixture.

  3. Optionally, add a layer of marmalade on top.

  4. Pour more mixture over the marmalade.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

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 + apricottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Lemon + apricottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Pounded into a fine paste that forms the body and flavour of the filling.
Eggs
Set on heating to give the filling structure and a custard-like body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and dissolves smoothly into the beaten mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender, smooth texture.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic oils that brighten the flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture over low heat. Eggs set when heated, so gentle low heat thickens the mixture to a custard without curdling or scrambling the eggs. High heat can cause the eggs to curdle.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, egg, sugar, butter, cheese, apricot):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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