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Dessert

Ilain Cheese-cakes

A cheese cake made from curd of new milk, sugar, lemon peel, nutmeg, butter, egg yolks, brandy, and topped with candied lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ilain Cheese-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the curd

  1. Drain the curd from the milk until dry.

  2. Pound the curd in a mortar until smooth.

  3. Mix in the sugar, grated lemon peel, and nutmeg.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the butter until frothy and add it to the curd along with the beaten egg yolks and brandy or sweet wine.

  2. Stir all ingredients together until well combined.

Bake

  1. Line your tins with pastry and fill each with the curd mixture.

  2. Top with thin slices of candied lemon peel.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Curd (in the method)
Forms the body of the filling, setting into a soft, sliceable custard-like texture when baked.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set and bind when heated.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and smooth mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and contributes to gentle browning in the oven.
Brandy or sweet wine
Adds aromatic flavour and a little liquid that loosens the filling.

The step that matters

Beat the butter until frothy before combining. Aerating the butter helps it blend evenly into the curd, giving a smooth, uniform filling rather than greasy pockets.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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