Skip to main content
Main

Cheese Fondue

A melted cheese mixture served with crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Fondue

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondue

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the milk, bread crumbs, grated cheese, salt, red pepper, and mustard. Mix well.

  3. Place the pot over boiling water and heat until hot.

  4. Stir in the beaten eggs and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened (about 3 minutes).

Serve

  1. Serve with crackers.

  2. Optionally, add a little Worcestershire sauce for extra flavor.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Eggs
Thicken the cheese mixture as they cook, giving the fondue a creamy, set body.
Grated cheese
Provides the main flavor and melts into the sauce to give it richness and body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cheese melts into, keeping the fondue smooth and pourable.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the mixture, adding body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. Egg proteins set when heated, so constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the mixture smooth. Overheating or leaving it still can curdle the eggs and make the fondue grainy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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

More cheese fondue recipes

Baked 12au Gratin 5 See all 153 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes