Name: Cheese Cakes Curds Creams
Ingredients: 10 eggs (5 whites); ¾ pound fine loaf sugar; 1 pint rich cream; 1 pound currants, washed and dried; 1 ounce candied citron, finely chopped; little coarse sea salt; spices of your choice; rich puff pastry for lining pans

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cheese Cakes Curds Creams

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Beat the eggs and mix with sugar and cream.
Rub the mixture through a coarse sieve using your hands.
Add the currants and candied citron to the mixture.
Line tin patty pans with puff pastry.
Fill the pans with the mixture and cover with pastry if desired.
Bake for about 20 minutes 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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,256 recipes

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Strawberryfits better
Currantthe original

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

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Cheese Cakes Curds Creams