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Cheese Toasts

Cheese Toasts are toasted bread topped with a baked cheese and mustard mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Toasts

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make the topping

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, butter, mustard, salt, Nepaul pepper, and beaten egg until smooth.

  2. If the mixture is too thin, add a little more grated cheese.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the buttered toast on a buttered dish.

  2. Spread the cheese mixture thickly over the toast.

  3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until nicely colored.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Mild dry cheese
Melts and browns to form the main savory topping.
Egg
Binds the cheese mixture and helps it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown evenly.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavor that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Keeping the mixture thick. If the cheese mixture is too thin, it will run off the toast instead of staying on top. Adding a little more grated cheese thickens it so it holds its shape while baking.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, pepper, egg, bread. 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.

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