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Dessert

Lemon Cheese Cakes

Small cakes made with lemon, almonds, sugar, egg yolks and butter, baked in tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Cheese Cakes

Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Lemon Cheese Cakes

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.

Prepare the lemons and almonds

  1. Squeeze the lemons.

  2. Boil the lemon skins until soft.

  3. Beat the skins in a mortar.

  4. Pass the skins through a fine sieve.

  5. Beat the blanched almonds.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the almonds with sugar, egg yolks, lemon juice and creamed butter.

Bake

  1. Fill the prepared tins.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Provide body and a tender, slightly dense crumb to the filling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Lemons
Juice adds acidity and skins add fragrant, slightly bitter aroma.

The step that matters

Boil the lemon skins until soft. Fully softened skins break down into a smooth paste and mellow the bitterness of the pith. Firm pieces would leave a gritty, harsh texture in the filling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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