Name: Old Dutch-cheese Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup cottage cheese; ½ cup sugar; ½ cup milk; 2 eggs; 2 tablespoons cornstarch; 1 tablespoon melted fat; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon lemon juice; mace or nutmeg for flavoring (optional)

Why it works: Cottage cheese and milk work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 239 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Old Dutch-cheese Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a mixing bowl, combine the cottage cheese, sugar, milk, eggs, cornstarch, melted fat, salt, and lemon juice.
Mix the ingredients in the order given until well combined. Add mace or nutmeg for flavoring if desired.

Bake and serve

Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 25 minutes until brown.
Let cool before serving.

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.

Cottage cheese + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together239 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cottage cheese + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together601 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,346 recipes

Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
Cottage cheese + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together145 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Cottage cheese: Forms the body of the cake, giving it a soft, custard-like structure.
Eggs: Set when baked, binding the mixture and giving it structure.
Cornstarch: Thickens the mixture so it holds its shape rather than running loose.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Milk: Adds moisture and richness, keeping the custard tender.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cottage cheese, sugar, milk, egg, lemon):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Dillfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cottage cheese, sugar, milk, egg, lemon. 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.