Name: Lemon Cheesecakes
Ingredients: ¼ pound butter, clarified; juice and rind of 1 large lemon; 6 ounces pounded loaf sugar; a little brandy; a few grated bread crumbs; ¼ pound currants; 3 eggs, well beaten; puff pastry for lining patty pans

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lemon Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

Clarify the butter when cold.
Add the lemon juice and rind, sugar, brandy, bread crumbs, currants, and beaten eggs to the butter.
Mix well until combined.
Line patty pans with puff pastry.
Fill the pastry with the lemon mixture.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Raisinfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, brandy, bread, currant, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.