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Cheese Puff

A baked cheese puff made with cheese, milk, butter, flour, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cheese Puff

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the cheese, salt, and eggs.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake for 20-25 minutes until puffed and 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the mixture and provide structure as they cook, helping it puff and hold its shape.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that gives the puff body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens with the flour and adds moisture to the puff.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour, and forms the base of the roux with the flour.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and fat, and contributes to the golden browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before mixing in the cheese, salt, and eggs. If the sauce is still very hot when the eggs go in, they can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Cooling slightly first keeps the batter smooth so it sets evenly and puffs.

“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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