Name: Curd Cheese-cake
Ingredients: 1 quart milk; ½ pound sugar; ¼ pound butter; 5 eggs; 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg; ¼ pound currants; 1 tablespoon rennet or wine (for curdling)

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Curd Cheese-cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the curd

Warm the milk and curdle it with rennet or wine.
Once thick, drain the curd using a sieve.

Make the filling

Beat the eggs and mix in the drained curd, sugar, and softened butter.
Add the nutmeg and currants, adjusting sugar to taste.

Bake

Line pie plates with pastry, fill with the mixture, and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,323 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,685 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 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

Milk: Forms the curd, which gives the cake its body and creamy texture.
Rennet or wine: Curdles the milk, separating solid curd from liquid whey.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and set on baking to give the cake its structure.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the filling and contributes to its soft, tender texture.
Nutmeg: Adds warm, aromatic spice that complements the dairy and sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg proteins set as they heat. Overbaking tightens them further, causing the filling to weep, turn grainy, and dry out.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, egg, nutmeg, wine. 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.