Lemon Cheesecakes

This recipe hails from the late 1600s, a time when the English gentry and rising urban middle classes were exploring more scientific and indulgent approaches to food. Almonds and floral waters like rose and orange flower fulfilled both the era’s love of luxurious, foreign ingredients and a desire for aromatic, delicate desserts. The recipe is described as 'cheesecakes,' though curiously, there is no cheese present, which aligns with several early modern English uses of the word to refer to rich egg-based baked goods, often set in pastry but sometimes, as here, made as baked custards or cakes in small tins.

The cook of the time would have employed a brass or stone mortar and pestle to pound the almonds, along with a sieve for sifting sugar. Eggs were separated by hand, and butter melted over the hearth. Almonds and lemon peel would have been laboriously prepared without mechanical aids. The mixture was baked in small individual tins—likely made of tinned copper —in a wood-fired oven, whose temperature had to be managed by experience. Modern recreators can use a food processor to grind the almonds, electric mixer for blending, and nonstick muffin pans or tartlette tins for baking.