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Dessert

Common Cheesecakes

A milk-based cheesecake with butter, sugar, nutmeg, biscuits, eggs, almonds, rose-water, sherry, and currants baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Common Cheesecakes

Why it works: Biscuit and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Common Cheesecakes

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 curd

  1. Add 1 tablespoon of rennet to 1 quart of new milk.

  2. Set the mixture near the fire until warm and curdled.

  3. Drain the curd through a coarse sieve, breaking it gently with your fingers.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix in ¼ pound of butter, ¼ pound of sugar, grated nutmeg, grated Naples biscuits, 4 egg yolks, 1 egg white, beaten almonds, rose‑water, and sack.

  2. Wash and clean 6 ounces of currants. Fold the currants into the curd mixture.

  3. Fill patty pans with the mixture.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Biscuit + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + biscuittop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

New milk
Forms the curd that gives the cheesecake its body.
Rennet
Causes the milk to curdle, separating solid curd from liquid whey.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set when baked.
Egg white
Adds structure so the mixture firms up as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat, giving the filling a richer, softer texture.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Draining the curd. Draining too little leaves excess whey, which makes the filling watery and can stop it setting firmly in the oven. Drain gently so the curd stays tender rather than crumbling into fine particles.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, biscuit, egg, almond, rose):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, biscuit, egg, almond, rose. 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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