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Dessert

Almond Cheesecake

A baked almond cheesecake made with pounded almonds, sugar, egg white, and puff pastry lining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Almond Cheesecake

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 almond filling

  1. Combine the pounded almonds, loaf sugar, and egg white in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer the mixture until it reaches the consistency of honey.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line patty pans with puff pastry.

  2. Spoon a little of the almond mixture into each lined patty pan.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the main nutty flavour and the body of the filling.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it thicken as it simmers to a honey-like consistency.
Egg white
Binds the almonds and sugar together and helps set the filling when baked.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky case that holds the almond filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Simmering the almond mixture. Simmering until it reaches a honey-like consistency matters because a mixture that is too thin may run out of the pastry while baking, and one that is too thick may bake dry and dense.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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