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Cheese Ramekins

A baked cheese custard made with cheese, breadcrumbs, milk, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread 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 Ramekins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Grate the quarter pound of soft cheese.

  2. Place the grated cheese in a sauce pan with one cup of soft bread crumbs.

  3. Add two cups of milk.

  4. Add one-half teaspoon of salt and a little paprika.

  5. Stir and cook until the ingredients are well mixed.

Add the eggs

  1. Take the mixture from the fire and drop in the yolks of two eggs, mixing.

  2. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Turn the mixture into a baking dish or ramekin dishes.

  2. Bake in a quick oven.

  3. Bake small dishes for ten minutes and large ones for twenty minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

795Calories
34 gProtein
24 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Cheese1 oz (28g) cheddar113
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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

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

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft cheese
Provides rich flavor and melts into the milk to give the custard body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the mixture, while whipped whites lighten it and help it rise and set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cheese melts into and the eggs set within.
Soft bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, helping the mixture hold together and stay soft.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Egg whites trap air when whipped, which lifts the mixture while baking. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard would deflate it and leave the ramekins dense.

“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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