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Dessert

Cheese Fondue

A cheese fondue made with stale bread crumbs, milk, butter, American cheese, salt, cayenne, and eggs, served on toasted crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Fondue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine stale bread crumbs and milk in a bowl. Let stand 20 minutes.

Make the fondue

  1. Melt butter in a chafing dish and add the soaked bread crumbs.

  2. When hot, stir in grated American cheese, salt, and cayenne.

  3. Once the cheese is melted, add the beaten eggs.

  4. As the mixture thickens, remove from heat and serve on toasted crackers.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the fondue into a thick, custard-like texture as they cook.
American cheese
Melts into a smooth, creamy base that carries the fondue's flavour.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and thicken the mixture, adding body.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs and provides the liquid that makes the fondue creamy.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs. Eggs set when heated, so the mixture can curdle or turn grainy if it gets too hot. Remove from heat as it thickens to keep it smooth.

“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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