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Dessert

Lemon Cheesecakes

A lemon custard baked in puff pastry rounds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Cut the puff pastry into rounds with a cutter.

  3. Cut the centers of the rounds halfway out with a smaller cutter.

  4. Bake the pastry rounds for 10 to 15 minutes.

  5. Push the centers in with your finger after baking.

Make the filling

  1. In an enamel saucepan, combine butter, sugar, lemon juice, egg yolks, and egg white.

  2. Stir over low heat until the mixture thickens to the consistency of honey.

Assemble

  1. Fill each pastry case with the mixture once it has cooled.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and white thicken the mixture as it heats, giving the filling its set body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the filling.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give it a smooth, glossy body.
Lemon juice
Provides the acidity that gives the filling its bright, tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until the mixture thickens. Egg proteins set when heated, so gentle low heat thickens the filling smoothly. Higher heat can scramble the eggs and leave lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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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