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Dessert

Ramakins

A baked cheese and egg bread made with Cheshire and Gloucester cheeses, butter, eggs, and a French roll.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ramakins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the Cheshire and Gloucester cheese.

  2. Cut the butter into pieces.

  3. Boil the French roll in cream until soft.

Make the mixture

  1. In a mortar, beat the cheeses, butter, egg yolks, and the soft roll together.

  2. Mix in the beaten egg whites gently.

  3. Pour the mixture into small paper pans that are longer than square.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a Dutch oven until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Egg yolks and whites bind the mixture and help it set and rise as it bakes.
Cheese
Cheshire and Gloucester cheese provide the main flavour and, when melted, a rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the bread a tender, moist crumb.
French roll
Softened in cream, it adds moisture and body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites trap air that makes the bread rise. Mixing them gently keeps that air from collapsing, so the bread stays light rather than 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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