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To Make Cheesecakes

A baked cheese mixture with butter, sugar, spices, eggs, and optional currants, topped with citron or candy peel and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Make Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the curd

  1. Turn 1 quart of warm milk with ½ teaspoon rennet and let it stand for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the whey from the curd and rub the curd through a sieve.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the curd with ¼ pound butter, ¼ pound sugar, 1 teaspoon orange‑flower water, 1 tablespoon brandy, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.

  2. Beat in 4 eggs until the mixture is light.

  3. Optionally, add ¼ pound of currants to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Lay a crust in patty‑pans.

  2. Fill them three‑quarters full with the mixture.

  3. Top with thinly sliced citron or candy‑peel and split blanched almonds.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Curdles with rennet to form the curd that becomes the body of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling and set during baking to give it a light, firm texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a tender, smooth mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Rubbing the curd through a sieve. Pressing the curd through a sieve breaks up lumps and drains off remaining whey, so the filling bakes smooth and dense rather than grainy or watery.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon, egg. 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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