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Dessert

Cheese Ramakins

A baked cheese and bread mixture made with eggs, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 Ramakins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Boil the bread and milk together.

  2. Stir over the heat for one minute, then remove from heat.

  3. Add mustard, egg yolks, and season with cayenne and salt.

Bake

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour into a greased dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes.

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

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks give the ramekins their light, risen structure, and yolks enrich the custard.
Bread
Soaked in boiling milk, the bread thickens the base and gives the ramekins body.
Milk
Moisture that cooks with the bread into a smooth, thick base.
Grated cheese
Adds rich savory flavor and fat to the mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites trap air that makes the mixture rise. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, so the ramekins bake flat and dense instead of light.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

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