Name: Cheese Pudding
Ingredients: 2 slices of toasted bread; 1 inch thick layer of grated cheese; ½ pint of milk

Why it works: Bread and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

2 slices of toasted bread
1 inch thick layer of grated cheese
½ pint of milk

Directions

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

Assemble

Place 2 slices of toasted bread in the bottom of a baking dish.
Add a layer of grated cheese an inch thick.
Repeat the layers of toast and cheese.
Pour over ½ pint of milk.

Bake and serve

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.
Serve at once.

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.

Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Toasted bread: Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the milk so it softens.
Grated cheese: Adds fat and savoury flavour, and browns as it bakes.
Milk: Supplies the moisture that soaks into the bread and keeps the layers tender.

“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.