Skip to main content
Baking

Another Way to Make Curd Cheese Cakes

A baked cake made from curd cheese, butter, almonds, sugar, candied citron, lemon peel, eggs, brandy, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Brandy and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Curd Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curd

  1. Add a little rennet to 2 quarts of new milk and let it curdle; then drain off the whey.

  2. Rub the curd through a sieve with ¼ pound of fresh butter.

Make the filling and bake

  1. Mix in ½ ounce of sweet almonds, 4 bitter almonds, 3 ounces of pounded loaf sugar, a little candied citron, the grated peel of ½ lemon, 3 well-beaten eggs, ⅓ cup of brandy, and 3 ounces of currants.

  2. Mix everything well together and bake in patty pans lined with pastry.

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

Eggs
Bind the filling and set during baking, giving the cakes structure.
New milk
Curdles with rennet to form the curd that makes up the body of the cake.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the curd a smooth, tender texture.
Pounded loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and a fine, tender texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Rub the curd through a sieve with the butter. Curd left in lumps bakes unevenly and gives a grainy texture. Pressing it smooth while well drained gives a fine, even filling that sets consistently.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, almond, sugar, lemon, 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.

You might also like

Currant CookiesCurrant Cookies8 recipesDelicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipes