Skip to main content
Dessert

Oranqe Cheesecakes

A sweet almond and orange-flower water cheesecake baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oranqe Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Soak sweet and bitter almonds in a drying stove or warm place for half an hour.

  2. Pound the almonds very fine in a mortar with rose or orange-flower water to prevent oiling.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter until smooth, then add to the almond mixture.

  2. Mix in the sifted sugar, grated lemon zest, cream, and eggs; rub all together well.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover a patty pan with puff pastry and fill it with the mixture.

  2. Decorate with slices of candied lemon peel and split almonds.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for half an hour.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  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. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body of the filling, giving it a rich, ground texture.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set firm when baked.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Sifted loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the filling.

The step that matters

Pound the almonds very fine with rose or orange-flower water. Fine grinding gives a smooth filling, and the added liquid helps keep the almonds from releasing their oil, which would make the filling greasy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More orange cheesecake recipes

Crust 9 See all 14 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes