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Cheese Fondue

A melted cheese dip made with butter, corn starch, cream, and seasonings, served with crackers.

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 ↓

Cheese Fondue

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and remove from heat.

  2. Add the corn starch and stir until well mixed.

  3. Gradually add the cream and cook for 2 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

  2. Season with salt and cayenne pepper, then serve on crackers.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese
Provides the main body, flavor, and melted texture of the fondue.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps form a smooth base with the starch.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream and helps keep the melted cheese smooth rather than separating.
Cream
Adds moisture so the cheese melts into a loose, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Add the cheese and stir until melted. Adding cheese off the heat, as the method directs, matters because high heat makes cheese proteins tighten and fat separate, giving a grainy or oily fondue.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, corn, pepper, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, corn, pepper, cream. 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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