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Cheese Cakopees

Cheese Cakopes are slices of stale bread fried in butter, layered with mustard and cheese, then baked until melted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 Cakopees

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut stale baker's bread into ½‑inch thick slices. Use a half‑moon cutter for crescents or cut into diamonds.

  2. Fry the bread slices in hot butter until very pale brown.

Top and bake

  1. Spread a thin layer of mustard on each slice.

  2. Top with a layer of rich cheese and season with coarse sea salt and white pepper.

  3. Bake in a sharp oven at 400 °F (200 °C) until the cheese is melted.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on a napkin.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Bread + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale baker's bread
Its drier crumb holds its shape and crisps rather than turning soggy under the toppings.
Butter
Fat that browns the bread surface and adds rich flavour during frying.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the melted cheese.
Rich cheese
Melts into a creamy layer and browns on top, providing the main savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Frying the bread until very pale brown. Frying in butter browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, which adds aroma and a sturdy base. Stopping at very pale brown keeps the bread from darkening or tasting bitter during baking.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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