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Cheese Ramequins

Cheese ramequins are baked custard-like dishes made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Ramequins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°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.

Make the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  4. Gradually add the milk, stirring until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Make the soufflé mixture

  1. Beat in the egg yolks and grated cheese.

  2. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gently fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into ramekins and 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 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. Flour + milktop 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
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites lift the mixture and give it airy volume.
Butter
Fat that enriches the base and carries flavour into the roux.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth, stable white sauce.
Milk
Liquid that, with the flour, forms the thickened base for the dish.
Grated cheese
Adds rich savoury flavour and fat, and helps the mixture set and brown.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped; overmixing deflates them and flattens the rise. Fold gently with a spatula so the soufflé puffs in the oven.

“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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