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Cheese on Toast

A toasted bread topped with a warm cheese sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cheese on Toast

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cheese on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Blend the flour and butter in a saucepan, then add the milk.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in the cheese.

  4. Boil again.

Assemble and bake

  1. Dip toasted bread in salted boiling water.

  2. Lightly butter the dipped bread.

  3. Pour the cheese mixture over the toast.

  4. Cover the toast.

  5. Place in the oven until ready to serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Old english cheese
Provides the main flavor and melts into the sauce to give it body and richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and keeps it smooth and creamy.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells and sets when heated with the liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and richness, and coats the flour so it blends without lumps.

The step that matters

Boiling again after the cheese goes in. Cheese proteins tighten and can turn grainy or oily at high heat. Keeping the sauce at a gentle boil, and stirring constantly, helps it stay smooth.

“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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