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Dessert

Cheese Cakes

A baked cheese curd cake with almonds, sugar, eggs, cream, brandy, mace or nutmeg, and optional candied peel and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cheese Cakes

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 ↓

Cheese Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the cheese curd and butter together until smooth.

  2. Add the almonds, sugar, egg yolks, cream, brandy, mace or nutmeg, and optional candied peel and currants. Mix well and pour the batter into a prepared baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 20 minutes.

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

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese curd
Forms the body of the cake, giving it a dense, creamy texture when baked.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm as the proteins cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender crumb.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Beating the cheese curd and butter until smooth. Lumps left at this stage stay in the batter and bake into a grainy texture. Fully smoothing the curd and butter gives an even, creamy crumb once the eggs and other ingredients are mixed in.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

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