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Dessert

Almond Cheesecakes

Almond cheesecakes made with sweet and bitter almonds, lemon rind, puff pastry, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Cheesecakes

serves 12

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Roll out the puff pastry very thinly and line 12 patty tins.

  3. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds, then chop and pound them very finely.

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  2. Add the egg yolks and rice flour to the butter mixture and beat thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the lemon rind and the finely ground almonds.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg white until stiff peaks form, then fold it into the almond mixture.

Bake

  1. Place a teaspoonful of the mixture into each patty case.

  2. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until golden.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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 + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the mixture and give it a airy, tender structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture while setting as it bakes.
Almonds
Provide the main body, nutty flavour and fine texture of the filling.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to create a smooth base that adds richness and tenderness.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps cream the butter to an aerated texture.
Rice flour
Adds a little structure to the filling while staying light and fine in texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Stiff egg white holds air that lightens the batter; overmixing or deflating it while folding makes the cakes dense and flat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, egg, sugar, butter, rice, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, egg, sugar, butter, rice, flour. 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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