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Lemon Cheese for Cheese Cakes

A lemon-flavored cheese mixture used in cheesecake.

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 Cheese for Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the sugar, well-beaten egg whites and yolks, and lemon juice.

  3. Stir until thick, but do not allow it to boil.

Store in a jar

  1. Grate the lemon zest into a jar.

  2. Pour the mixture over the zest, mix well, and cover securely.

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. Egg + lemontop 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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they gently set with heat, giving it a custard-like body.
Egg whites
Add body and help the mixture thicken as it heats.
Lemon juice
Provides the main acidity and bright citrus flavour.
Lemon zest
Contributes concentrated lemon aroma and oils to the flavour.

The step that matters

Stir until thick, but do not allow it to boil.. The eggs contain proteins that set as they heat. Gentle, constant stirring keeps the heat even, so they thicken smoothly. If the mixture boils, the eggs can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture that cannot be fixed by stirring.

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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