Skip to main content
Main

Cheese Fondue

A baked cheese fondue made with milk, butter, bread crumbs, cream cheese, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Add bread crumbs to scalded milk.

  2. Stir in cheese, butter, salt, and beaten egg yolks; mix well.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites until combined.

Bake and test

  1. Pour mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes.

  3. Test with a knife to check doneness.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cream cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Milk + cream cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks and whipped whites give the fondue its light, puffed structure as it sets.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the scalded milk and help give the fondue body and a soft texture.
Cream cheese
Melts into the custard, adding richness, creaminess and cheesy flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the bread crumbs absorb and the eggs set within.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites until combined. Egg whites trap air when beaten; folding gently keeps that air so the fondue rises and stays light. Stirring hard would deflate the foam and leave it 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.

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